In 2020 and 2021, assets seized in the EU averaged around €4.1 billion. Yet the amount was too low: less than two percent of the estimated annual proceeds of organized crime were seized, Europol said in Brussels on Monday.
“Organized crime has built a parallel global criminal economy around money laundering, illicit financial transfers and corruption,” explains Catherine De Bolle, Executive Director of Europol. “One of the challenges is that many criminal actors are outside the EU and they are rapidly developing the techniques they use.”
Up to 70 percent of criminal networks use various forms of money laundering to finance their activities, she said, and 80 percent abuse legal business structures for crime.
Ylva Johansson, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, called on EU countries to step up cooperation in the fight against organized crime.
“If EU Member States work even more closely together in this fight, we can achieve great results,” she said.