Paul Notenboom
Deputy Director Criminal Assets Deprivation Bureau Public Prosecution Service
Senior Public Prosecutor
Head of ARO

• Crime should not and will not pay
• To keep criminal assets away from the criminals forever

• Dutch procedure = value confiscation (not object confiscation)
• Deprivation procedure is a separate procedure. Apart from the criminal investigation procedure.
• Deprivation procedure is a criminal procedure itself.
- Rules of the Dutch Criminal Proceedings;
- ECHR rules are applied;
• Conviction in the criminal case is needed. (in rem procedure = not possible)
• deprivation procedure ≠ new criminal charge

• The BOOM since 1994
• June 2006: the BOOM is organised in a new way
• More public prosecutors, forensic accountants, civil and international advisors, asset tracers
• Opening of branches in Zwolle,
Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Den Bosch

• Part of the PPS
• Separate organisation with dedicated personnel and specific goals
• Chain of deprivation
• To improve results of deprivation

• Prosecuting the most important deprivation cases
• Asset tracing and precautionary seizure
• Management of the precautionary seizure of capital assets (AMO)
• Expert centre = knowledge centre
• Supporting the central fine collection agency (CJIB) regarding the execution of deprivation measures
• International contactpoint (ARO)

• BOOM = ARO = new organisation since 1 January 2010
• Central point for requests for mutual legal assistance in deprivation cases (national and EU)
• Expertice centre
• Sharing best practices
• Sharing information on police-police level in deprivation cases

In practise need for:
administration
asset tracing
expertise with regard to international mutual legal assistance
other specialism
Occupation of the ARO – window (3 officials):
Administration (1 official);
Asset tracer (1 official);
International legal advisor (1 official);

•
•
•
•
•
Public prosecutor
Assistant of the public prosecutor
Administrative officers
Advisors: auditor civil advisor international advisor
Asset tracer

• Centralized administration at BOOM
• minimize costs
• maximize revenue’s
(artt. 117 and 118 Dutch Criminal Procedure Act)

Seized items
• Cash
• Bank accounts
• Vehicles
• Vessels
•
Airplanes
• Jewelry
• Art
• Real estate
• Stocks
• Seized goods in the Netherlands on behalf of foreign countries
• Seized goods in foreign countries on behalf of the Netherlands

The estimated value of the seized goods current estimated value of seized goods
Cash money in the account of BOOM € 110.000.000,-supplemental € 510.000.000,--

aro (asset recovery office) amo (asset management BOOM) exchange of police information registration and monitoring of the seized assets and the MLA requests expert centre management of assets irc (centre for international legal assistance) rendering of judicial mutual legal assistance (MLA) requests

• IRC = Centre for International Legal Assistance;
• Cooperation Police – PPS;
• Connection to LURIS system (national registration system for
MLA requests);
• 6 regional IRC’s and 1 national IRC;
• Ministry of Justice (department for Legal assistance) has also
IRC status.

Ministry of Justice
IRC Amsterdam
EU Arrest Warrant
IRC North, West and the middle part of the Netherlands
ICP/ARO
(boom/irc/aro )
IRC North and
Eastern part of the Netherlands
National IRC
IRC The Hague
Tribunals, ICC and int. Legal ass.
In Civil maters
IRC
Rotterdam
Dordrecht
Ipol
IRC Southern part of the
Netherlands

Why ARO/BOOM in IRC structure?:
Need for better overview with regard to international confiscation and international seizure;
Need for better overview (monitoring) with regard to MLA requests and possibility to signal the bottlenecks;
Need for better efficiency with regard to the follow up of the MLA requests
(managing of seized assets, transfer of execution);
Transparency with regard to the international confiscation: 1 contact for national chain partners and foreign authorities;
-
Because of (multidisciplinairy) expert knowledge at BOOM: more efficiënt and quicker seizure in the Netherlands and abroad;
Practical experience leads to knowledge for IRC/BOOM as expertise centre.

• Improving the quality on requests for mutual legal assistance in deprivation cases
• Better registry of amount of requests for mutual legal assistance in deprivation cases
• Better registry of international pre-judgement seizure => better management of the seized items

Very specific knowledge (combination of expertices, expertice within expertice, special approach is needed);
Much development, much interrest for international confiscation;
Often new legislation (lack of expertise);
Different law systems , different forms of confiscation;
Often complicated investigations;

IRC/ARO BOOM
P.O. Box 264
2501 CG The Hague
Tel: 0031 70 – 424 1680 (1682 or 1670)
Fax: 0031 70 – 424 1671 e-mail: irc.aro.boom@om.nl

Two different schemes of confiscation: a) ‘ordinairy’ confiscation (verbeurdverklaring):
• punishment;
• direct link between offence – item;
• object confiscation;

Two different schemes of confiscation: b) special confiscation (deprivation of illegally obtained assets)
• non-punitive order;
• link between offence – item = not (always) neccesairy;
• value based confiscation;

How does it work practically?
• The amount of the assets that have been obtained illegally can be estimated;
• Estimation is based on legal evidence that is collected during criminal investigation or criminal financial investigation (CFI);
• To collect the amount of the criminal assets, any item that is of value and belongs to the suspect can be seized precautionary (pre-judgement seizure);
• Third party seizure/confiscation is possible;
• The judge determines the estimated amount of the illegally obtained advantage;

a) Wider range of the possibility to deprive instrumentalities of crime; b) Introduction of the shifting of the burden of proof; c) Wider range of the possibility to precautionary seize items that belong to another person than the suspect (third party confiscation); d) Possibility to start a CFI (with the possibility to use coersive measures) in the phase between confiscation order and execution (‘SEO’).

Minister of Security and Justice:
• The deprivation procedure of criminal assets must be followed more frequently and automatically. Both the Police and the Public
Prosecution Service must become more acquainted with this procedure (not only with regard to financial crimes);
• Need for better incasso results;
• Reinforcement of Police and Public Prosecution Service;

Better focus on confiscation: a) Regional Public Prosecution Services have to reach targets with regard to prejudgement seizure (a percentage of their budget); b) Special confiscation teams; c) Each year a specific amount with regard to the imposed confiscation orders that have become final has to be collected;
( € 55 mio in 2010, € 50 mio in 2011 and eventually € 100 mio in 2018).
d) therefore growth in seized assets 50 mio per annum.

Section 117 Dutch Criminal procedure Act
1.
The seized objects cannot be alienated....unless an authorisation has been obtained.
2.
The authorisation mentioned in section 1 may be given by the Public
Prosecutor’s Service as regards objects a. which are not suitable for storage; b. of which the storage costs stand in no relation to their value; c. which can be replaced and the counter value of which can easily be determined

aro (asset recovery office) amo (asset management BOOM) exchange of police information registration and monitoring of the seized assets and the MLA requests expert centre management of assets irc (centre for international legal assistance) rendering of judicial mutual legal assistance (MLA) requests

Section 118a Dutch Criminal Procedure Act
1.
The Public Prosecutor’s Service can either officially or on behalf of the person involved or another interested party order the return against surety of an object seized based on article 94a.
2.
The surety implies the transfer of money by the party subject to the seizure or a third party, or in relation to a third party, as a guarantee for an amount and payment method accepted by the Public Prosecutor’s
Service

• According to UNodc report (published on 25.10.2011)
All over the world in 2009 crime brought in:
$ 2,1 trillion (= € 1.500.000.000.000)
• Which is equal to 4 percent of the world economy;
• The largest part of this amount is laundered by the criminals;
• According to the report in 2009 less than 1% was seized;
There is still a lot of work to do!