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LONDON (Reuters) - The Assets Recovery Agency (ARA), set up to claw back cash made by offenders from their criminal activities, has spent over 40 million pounds more than it has managed to collect, a damning report said on Wednesday.

The ARA was set up in 2003 with the aim of ending the "champagne lifestyle" of organised gangsters and crooks.

But a study by financial watchdog the National Audit

Office (NAO) found that half the cases the ARA had taken on in 2003-4 were still be pursued three years later and that it had successfully recovered assets in just 52 out of over 700 cases.
In total, the agency, which was meant to become self-financing by 2005-6, had spent 65 million pounds but recovered assets worth just 23 million pounds