Ex-Tameside detective helps seize £15m from crooks

A former Tameside detective is a senior member of a team which has seized more than £15m from criminals in Greater Manchester.

GMP’s Economic Crime Unit consists of police officers, detectives and support staff who deal with complex investigations into serious fraud, money laundering and confiscating the proceeds of crime in Greater Manchester.

The unit is made up of a number of specialist teams, each with police officers and staff targeting different areas of criminal finances to ensure that all their funds are removed.

Detective Sergeant Peter Goddard has led a team of detectives in the Money Laundering Team since 2023 and before this he worked as a detective in Tameside.

His team is responsible for conducting warrants, arresting suspects, and seizing high value items and cash from their properties. The team’s primary responsibility is to arrest those responsible for money laundering across Greater Manchester.

Manchester is one of a few police forces in the country to have a dedicated, proactive money laundering team within an Economic Crime Unit.

Detective Sergeant Ben Miller, a member of the account freezing team, has worked in GMP’s Economic Crime Unit since 2015, and before this he worked as a detective in Oldham.

Ben’s team responsibility lies with targeting criminals' bank accounts. This tax year his team have recovered more than £4 million, with a proportion being spent on community initiatives and policing operations in Greater Manchester through the asset recovery initiative scheme.

They were the first team in the country to use forfeiture legislation to tackle criminal bank accounts.