Commission sets sights on organised crime
Proposed legislation would make it easier to confiscate profits from serious criminal activity.
The European Commission wants to create a European Union-wide regime for confiscating assets linked to criminal activities.
Cecilia Malmström, the European commissioner for home affairs, today said that the draft directive would streamline existing rules and close loopholes. It would create a single legal framework for seizing assets gained from serious or organised crime, she said.
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“Drug crime and other organised crime generate huge profits, and far too little of it is confiscated,” Malmström said. “Putting criminals in jail is only part of the job. The other crucial part is to make sure that crime doesn’t pay.”
The new rules, which require the backing of member states and the European Parliament, would allow prosecutors to freeze assets as a precautionary measure even before a criminal suspect had been convicted.
They would make it possible to seize assets whose origin cannot be traced back to a specific criminal act but that are linked to a convicted person’s criminal activities. They would also make it easier to recover assets that have been passed on to a third person in cases where that person should have been aware of their origin.
Malmström said that the new regime was a demand from the member states, and that it was an important measure during an economic crisis.