Europol Unclassified – Basic Protection Level
Taiex workshop on strengthening national and
international co-operation in asset recovery
Ankara, 21-23 May 2012
Burkhard Mühl, Senior Specialist
Europol Criminal Assets Bureau
Asset seizure and confiscation
• 70 % of all crimes are committed for financial gain - Confiscation
attacks this core motive and prevents that criminal wealth be
used for other crimes
• It allows to target the decision-makers within criminal
organisations
• It may have a deterrent effect (“crime does not pay”) and help
removing negative role models
• Criminals and their illegal profits move almost effortlessly across
the borders
• Relatively limited number of confiscation cases in the EU and
modest amounts recovered if compared to estimated revenues of
organised crime groups
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Europol Criminal Assets Bureau
Responsibilities of ECAB
Operational
• To provide support to all mandates crime areas in order to
identify and seize/freeze criminal assets
• To directly support Member States in tracing criminal assets
located outside their jurisdictions
Strategic
• To support Member States in the establishment of Asset
Recovery Offices in line with European Law (Council
Decision 2007/845/JHA) and to facilitate the information
exchange between them via the Europol SIENA System
• To hold the permanent Secretariat of the ‘The Camden
Asset Recovery Inter-Agency Network – CARIN ‘
• To manage The Europol Financial Crime Information Centre
Web Site – FCIC
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EU Council Decision on Asset Recovery Office(s)
What is it’s purpose?
• Obliges every Member State to set up ARO
Principal obligation to set up/ designate 1 (or 2)
AROs per Member State - Legal/constitutional set-up of every MS
• Creates legal EU framework for existing informal network CARIN
• Establishes legal obligation for co-operation between AROs of
different legal nature
EU Council Decision on Asset Recovery Office(s)
Background
• CARIN Network
• Austrian Presidency initiaitive, supported by Belgium and Finland
ARO = Office charged with
• the facilitation of the tracing and identification of proceeds of
crime and other crime related property
(!)
which may become the object of an order made by
a competent judicial authority for freezing or seizure or for
confiscation in the course of criminal or, as far as possible
under the national law of the Member State concerned, civil
proceedings.
EU Council Decision on Asset Recovery Office(s)
Obligation to exchange infomation and best practices
• Regardless of legal nature of ARO
• Reference to the Framework Decision on simplifying the exchange
of information between the law enforcement authorties of the MS
of the EU
- Procedures, Channel,Data protection regime, Time limits
• Co-operation is aimed at exchanging information on location and
identification of seizable property = police co-operation
Conclusion FD AROs
EU Council Decision on Asset Recovery Office(s) =
• important ‘instutional brick’ in the EU framework for confiscation
of criminal proceeds
• Mutual recognition of freezing orders/confiscation orders is
contingent upon the swift exchange of information between AROs
INDICATORS TO MEASURE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF
AROS
1. Direct or indirect powers to freeze assets
2. Level of access to existing databases and registers
3. Ease of access to financial information (formally or
informally, without a court order
4. Access to a secure system of information exchange
5. Level of involvement in asset management
(ensuring the cohesion of the confiscation chain).
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INDICATORS TO MEASURE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF
AROS
6.
Level of involvement of CARIN contact points in their activities (thus
preventing the duplication of efforts)
7.
Success in regularly meeting time limits stipulated in the Swedish
initiative
8.
Ability of keeping statistics on their activities and access to judicial
statistics.
9.
Resources & capacity (with respect to needs eg capacity to act as a
central contact point, minimum number of financial investigators)
10 . Availability and participation in appropriate training.
11.
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Level of multidisciplinarity in ARO composition.
ARO SIENA Project
√ A direct link for AROs to SIENA is recommended
√ Provides High security standards for exchanging
sensitive information
√ 17 AROs are already added as a subgroup under
SIENA:
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark,
Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland,
Slovak Republic, Spain, United Kingdom
√ Recommended to forward SIENA requests also to
the Europol Criminal Assets Bureau (ECAB)
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The role of Europol in the information
exchange between AROs
√ Through Europol Criminal Asset Bureau access to
Europol databases and capacities:
Analysis
Cross-matching
Identification of new leads
√ Co-operation with third countries with operational
Europol agreement: Australia, Canada, Croatia,
Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, USA, Monaco
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Co-operation with Third Parties
ARO SIENA Statistics 2011
Sent
Received
DE.ARO 41
ES.ARO 23
FR.ARO 22
FI.ARO 14
UK.ARO 12
EE.ARO 10
NL.ARO 6
BG.ARO 5
LT.ARO 5
HU.ARO 5
DK.ARO 4
BE.ARO 4
LU.ARO 3
CY.ARO 1
SK.ARO 1
Grand Total
DE.ARO
ES.ARO
FR.ARO
EE.ARO
FI.ARO
DK.ARO
SK.ARO
UK.ARO
50
23
19
16
14
8
3
1
Grand Total
156
134
ARO SIENA Statistics 2012 (1st quarter)
Sent
DE.ARO
FR.ARO
FI.ARO10
ES.ARO
UK.ARO
EE.ARO
BG.ARO
AT.ARO
LT.ARO2
PL.ARO
DK.ARO
NL.ARO
Grand Total
Received
15
10
7
4
3
3
2
2
2
1
61
DE.ARO
ES.ARO
FR.ARO
EE.ARO
FI.ARO4
DK.ARO
Grand Total
31
8
7
6
2
58
Centralised bank account registers (CBRs)
EU Internal Security Strategy: Five steps
towards a more secure Europe, COM(2010)673,
22 November 2010:
To help trace the movement of criminal finances,
some MS have set up a central register of bank
accounts. To maximise the usefulness of such
registers for law enforcement purposes, the
Commission will in 2012 develop guidelines.
ARO Platform
• Established in 2009 by the Commission and Europol to
enhance co-operation and co-ordination of Asset Recovery
Offices at EU level - (Council Decision 2007/845/JHA).
• Identified a need to improve the access to centralised data
bases, in particular to financial information in order to
trace and identify bank accounts effectively across the EU
• Sub-Working Group on centralised bank account registers
(CBRs) established in March 2011
• First operational meeting held in June 2011
(Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark,
France, Italy, Luxembourg, Moldova, Netherlands,
Portugal)
Centralised bank account registers (CBRs)
Seven countries so far have centralised
bank account registers:
Croatia - FINA, Germany - BaFin, France - FICOBA,
Italy - National Tax Register, Portugal – Banco de
Portugal, Romania – National Agency of Fiscal
Administration and Slovenia - AJPES.
Belgium has a central point of contact at the National
Bank which performs a similar role.
Some countries, e.g. Bulgaria, Czech Republic,
Finland, Hungary, Slovakia and Spain are currently considering
to introduce legislation establishing CBRs.
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ARO Platform Sub Working Group
Meeting at the COM on 15 March 2012
• Agreement to have a clear recommendation for the MS to
establish a national centralised (or centrally accessible) bank
account register in an electronic format, managed by a public
authority.
• Banks should provide information on the financial
relationship with their customers. The CBR should collect
information on bank accounts in general and this should
include information on all financial products like saving
accounts, loans, receivables, credit cards, debit cards,
securities, trusts, insurance products, safety deposit boxes etc.
ARO Platform Sub Working Group
•
Data on beneficial ownership of bank accounts and signatories
should be included. Discussion has shown that this is a
difficult issue, and more discussion might be needed.
•
Altough it would be ideal, the CBR should not include any
details of transactions or the balance of the account.
•
Consent that online access to CBR is provided to law
enforcement agencies in the course of a criminal investigation
without the prior need for authorisation by judicial authorities
•
Law enforcement should be able to consult CBR also on
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request of a foreign competent authority (ARO, FIU) without
the need for an MLA procedure
ARO Platform Sub Working Group
• No clear position on whether national courts should have
access to CBR for debt recovery purposes as this question
might be outside the scope of the sub working group.
CARIN
58 Members
48 Countries / Jurisdictions:
Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark,
Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Guernsey, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man,
Israel, Italy, Jersey, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco,
Montenegro, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia,
South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States of America
9 International Organisations:
Europol, Egmont Group, Eurojust, International Criminal Court (ICC), International Monetary Fund (IMF),
Interpol, OLAF, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), World Bank
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WORLD
CARIN
ARINSA
RRAG
Thank you for your attention!
Burkhard Mühl, MA
Senior Specialist
Europol Criminal Assets Bureau
Tel.: +31(0)703531623
Mobile: +31(0)652560497
burkhard.muhl@europol.europa.eu