In a new report published on Friday 5 April, the European Union’s police cooperation agency, Europol, provided the first detailed mapping of the most dangerous criminal networks operating in Europe, to enable law enforcement authorities to track them down and dismantle them more effectively, the announcement was made in The Hague by Europol Director General Catherine de Bolle, Belgian Interior and Justice Ministers Annelies Verlinden and Paul Van Tigchelt, and European Commissioners for Home Affairs and Justice Ylva Johansson and Didier Reynders.
In this first exercise of its kind, Europol put no fewer than 821 networks with more than 25,000 members on its radar, half of them active in drug trafficking, followed by migrant smuggling, cigarette smuggling, property crime and corruption.
All EU Member States and 17 Europol partner countries have provided data to identify these criminal networks. The report indicates in particular that 86% of the most threatening criminal groups in Europe use legal commercial structures between construction and real estate, hotels and logistics, the sectors “most vulnerable to infiltration”, according to the head of Europol.
Gangs use real estate as a means of laundering money by calling on the services of lawyers and financial experts. Nightclubs can also become havens for drug trafficking. The networks can target small traders, particularly ‘night shops’, through racketeering and extortion, said the Belgian Minister.
The logistics sector, particularly in major European ports, is also the target of corruption to allow drug shipments to pass through. The report also reveals that a large proportion of these dangerous gangs (34%) have been active for at least 10 years.
“During such extended periods of time, they are able to maintain their influence and power, even if leaders and members are detained. They are often aware of law enforcement initiatives and actively apply countermeasures - potentially also aided by corruptive practices to obtain information from or infiltrate law enforcement or the judiciary”.
According to Europol, more than 70% of networks engage in corruption to facilitate their criminal activities or to obstruct law enforcement or judicial proceedings.
The networks also tend to concentrate on a single geographical area, with little inclination to disperse geographically, in this case most often in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.
Their membership is highly international, with 112 nationalities represented.
Most of the heads of these networks are outside the EU, some of them in the United Arab Emirates, and Dubai has “emerged as a remote coordination hub”.
Networks also tend to specialise in one main criminal activity, with truly multi-crime networks being the exception rather than the norm.
In addition, 68% of the networks use violence and intimidation as an inherent feature of their modus operandi. The five leaders expressed concern about actions that were becoming increasingly visible and threatening the safety of citizens, in particular through fatal shootings.
“The impact of these findings will have significant implications for justice systems across the EU and the Rule of law. Judges and prosecutors can only fight organised crime if they are free from intimidation, threats or attempts to influence their professional integrity. We must assure that this is the case”, commented Commissioner Didier Reynders. “Cooperation between experts is vital. This is why the Commission will be supporting proposals for a new European Judicial Network, to be placed at Eurojust, with a focus on organised crime, including High Value Targets”.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/bmq (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)