Yesterday, the Commission presented a new EU Strategy to tackle Organised Crime, which focuses on strengthening law enforcement and judicial collaboration, addressing organised crime structures and high priority crimes, eliminating criminal profits and guaranteeing an up-to-date response to technological progress. 

Organised crime has continued to evolve even during the coronavirus pandemic.  These criminal groups have shifted their focus to, for instance, counterfeit medical equipment and online crimes. The prevailing criminal activities in which organised crime groups in Europe are involved in are drug trafficking, organised property crime, fraud, migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings. Taking this into consideration, the new Strategy establishes the instruments and actions to be taken throughout the next 5 years in order to dismantle the business models and structures of criminal organisations, whether online or offline. 

Main goals of the Strategy

Strengthening law enforcement and judicial collaboration - the Commission will broaden funding for the European multidisciplinary platform against criminal threats (EMPACT). It will propose to upgrade the framework for exchanging information on DNA, fingerprints and vehicle registration, and will propose an EU Police Cooperation Code as well, to simplify the current mechanism. The Commission already proposed yesterday to negotiate a cooperation agreement with Interpol.

Increasing the efficiency of investigations and focusing on high priority crimes - the Commission will propose to review the EU rules against environmental crime and will create a set of tools to fight counterfeiting, particularly of medical products. It also presented a Strategy to battle trafficking in human beings. 

Eliminating criminal profits – despite the fact that more than 80% of criminal networks in the EU use legitimate businesses as a front for their activities, while only 1% of criminal assets is confiscated. The Commission will propose to amend the EU rules on confiscating criminal profits, improve the EU anti-money laundering rules, support the early launch of financial investigations and examine the current EU anti-corruption rules.

Modernising the technology of law enforcement and judiciary: about 80% of crimes have a digital element. Therefore, the Commission will design possible procedures for data retention as well as propose a course of action to address a legitimate and targeted access to encrypted information that would protect security and the confidentiality of communications. The Commission will also work with relevant EU Agencies to provide national authorities with the tools, intelligence and operational skills necessary to carry out digital investigations.

Image © European Commission, 2020