The first report from the European Financial and Economic Crime Centre, created in 2020, delivered on 11 September by the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, and the Director of Europol, Catherine De Bolle, revealed that almost 70% of criminal networks operating in the EU use some form of money laundering to finance their activities and conceal their assets.
More than 60% of criminal networks operating in the EU use various methods of corruption, with these ‘bribes’ costing them virtually nothing, given the profits generated in return.
The report details these methods of corruption as well as the various types of fraud used by criminal groups, which are becoming increasingly sophisticated. In 2023, one such example of fraud involved the repackaging of foodstuffs that had already expired for a profit of €1 million.
The report also states that these criminal groups’ main players are often outside the EU. And despite some progress, the assets recovered from criminals still represent only a small percentage of their income.
“There is currently no fully reliable data available on illicit proceeds generated by serious and organised crime in the EU. An overall conclusion may be, however, that the large majority of illicit proceeds remain in the hands of organised crime. When taking into consideration the revenues of organised crime, the most recent approximations on yearly profits of nine criminal markets in the EU ranged between €92 to 188 billion. Therefore, the seized criminal funds would amount to between 4.4% and 2.2% of the total illicit revenues”, said the report.
“Considering that even the larger estimate of €188 billion is undoubtedly an underestimation, the amount of assets that law enforcement agencies manage to seize (...) remains below 2% of the yearly proceeds of organised crime”.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/8hs (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)