EU eyes tougher laws to seize criminal spoils
Photo © Zoran Vukmanov Simok - Fotolia
(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission unveiled proposals Monday to make it easier to seize the ill-gotten assets of mafia bosses and prevent their heirs from inheriting the spoils.
Organised crime groups pocket hundreds of billions of euros every year, but "far too little of this is confiscated," said EU home affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem.
With criminals increasingly investing across EU borders to hide illicit profits in real estate, luxury cars, yachts, race horses and legitimate businesses, she proposed new cross-border rules to facilitate the seizure of such assets.
"Putting criminals in jail is of course important, but it's only part of this job. The other crucial work is to make sure that crime does not pay," Malmstroem said.
"The aim of this proposal is very simple: to make it easier for the police to hit organised crime and mafia groups where it hurts the most: going after the money."
The commission wants authorities to be able to confiscate the assets of criminals who cannot be convicted because they are either dead, permanently ill or have disappeared.
In 2010, Italian authorities used such powers to seize 700 million euros worth of properties, shops, warehouses and bank accounts from the heirs of a dead suspect.
The commission also wants to strengthen the rules on the seizure of assets transferred by a criminal to a third person, such as relatives or "front men."
Another proposal would allow French police, for instance, to ask Swedish authorities to temporarily freeze the assets of a suspect even before a court order is issued in order to ensure the funds do not vanish before prosecution.
There are no EU-wide estimates on the extent of criminal profits but national figures cited by the commission highlight a gap between gang revenues and the confiscation of criminal assets.
In Italy, organised crime generates an estimated 150 billion euros ($197 billion) a year, but in 2009 assets temporarily frozen by authorities amounted to 800 million euros.
Britain recovered GBP 125 million (149 million euros, $196 million) in 2006, a year when criminals made an estimated GBP 15 billion.
In Germany, 113 million euros were seized from organised crime in 2009 but the criminals were estimated to have pocketed some 903 million euros.
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