Confiscating criminals' assets - EU plans

Draft rules to make it easier for national authorities to freeze and confiscate criminals' assets across the EU were beefed up by the European Parliamentary Civil Liberties Committee this week. The MEPs also sought to safeguard the right to a fair trial, and called upon member states to use confiscated assets to fight crime and for social projects.

The draft law, which must still be negotiated with national governments, is part of a broader EU strategy to fight fraud and corruption. 

"'Follow the money across the border' should be the driving priority if we want to trace funding for organised crime and terrorism effectively and efficiently. Confiscating criminals' assets, even where a criminal conviction is not possible, is clearly necessary to recover the proceeds of crime", said lead MEP Monica Luisa Macovei.

Today, less than 1% of the proceeds of crimes such as drug trafficking, counterfeiting, human trafficking and small arms smuggling are frozen and confiscated. Most of this "dirty money" is laundered and channelled into the licit economy, often in several member states.

The new rules would:

* enable national authorities quickly to identify and trace such assets and to freeze, manage and confiscate them consistently across the EU.

* require all member states to enable the confiscation of criminal assets following a final conviction for a criminal offence.

* allow authorities to confiscate money or any assets where a criminal conviction is not possible, provided that a court is "convinced on the basis of specific circumstances and all the available evidence that those assets derive from activities of a criminal nature, while fully respecting the provisions of Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights [right to a fair trial] and the European Charter of Fundamental Rights".

* strengthen the authorities' power to confiscate assets that are not directly linked to a specific crime, but which were clearly acquired through similar criminal activities by the convicted person.

* permit confiscation from third parties under specific conditions, i.e. where the acquiring third party got them for free or paid significantly less than the market value, and knew or had enough elements to suspect that the assets were of illicit origin.

* ensure that where injured parties have a claim against the defendant, confiscation does not jeopardise the enforcement of such claims.

However, member states that have already established non-criminal law procedures for non-conviction based confiscation will not be required to incorporate these provisions into their criminal law systems.

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