WA's Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) will be given sweeping new powers to confiscate the unexplained wealth of organised crime figures, Attorney-General John Quigley says.

Mr Quigley said Cabinet had approved his proposal to amend the Confiscation of Crime Act and the Corruption and Crime Commission Act to allow the CCC to target the "Mr Bigs" of organised crime.

Under the proposed changes, the front doors of the CCC will become the "gates of hell" for criminals who will be forced to testify under oath about their unexplained wealth, Mr Quigley said.

"This will enable the CCC to utilise their crime analysts, forensic accountants, covert surveillance devices, telephone intercepts and most importantly, the secret hearing room where the Mr Bigs will be put in the witness box and forced to explain their unexplained wealth under oath," he said.

"So for those people who have garnered assets and have no visible means of support, the CCC front doors will become the gates of hell because they will have to go in there and explain how they obtained these luxury items with no visible means of support.

"These people have traded in poison, destroying their customers with ice and destroying families and Labor is going to take them head on."

'Evil serpents in our community'

Mr Quigley said if the crime suspects could not give a satisfactory answer, orders will be sought for the seizure of their wealth.

"We're going after the wealth of the Mr Bigs, and as the police have said, their money is their soft underbelly," he said.

Mr Quigley says organised crime figures are "evil serpents". ( ABC News: Andrew O'Connor )

"These syndicates are evil serpents in our community and we intend to cut their heads off."

He said the head of the Organised Crime Squad had indicated police have a list of people they want to target immediately.

Mr Quigley conceded laws to confiscate the assets of criminals have been in place since 2000, but he said the Director of Public Prosecutions office did not have the resources to pursue criminals.

He said in 2011 it was recommended those powers should be transferred to the CCC, but the previous Barnett government failed to act.

Mr Quigley said he wanted to have the new laws in force by the middle of 2017.