Ankara, 21-23 May 2012

Burkhard Mühl, Senior SpecialistEuropol Criminal Assets Bureau

Europol Unclassified – Basic Protection Level

Taiex workshop on strengthening national and international co-operation in asset recovery

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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

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. Level of multidisciplinarity in ARO composition.

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ARO SIENA ProjectARO 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 The role of Europol in the information exchange between AROsexchange 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

Co-operation with Third Parties

ARO SIENA Statistics 2011

Sent Received

DE.ARO 41ES.ARO 23FR.ARO 22FI.ARO 14UK.ARO 12EE.ARO 10NL.ARO 6BG.ARO 5LT.ARO 5HU.ARO 5DK.ARO 4BE.ARO 4LU.ARO 3CY.ARO 1SK.ARO 1Grand Total 156

DE.ARO 50ES.ARO 23FR.ARO 19EE.ARO 16FI.ARO 14DK.ARO 8SK.ARO 3UK.ARO 1

Grand Total 134

ARO SIENA Statistics 2012 (1st quarter)

Sent Received

DE.ARO 15FR.ARO 10FI.ARO 10ES.ARO 7UK.ARO 4EE.ARO 3BG.ARO 3AT.ARO 2LT.ARO 2PL.ARO 2DK.ARO 2NL.ARO 1Grand Total 61

DE.ARO 31ES.ARO 8FR.ARO 7EE.ARO 6FI.ARO 4DK.ARO 2Grand Total 58

EU Internal Security Strategy: Five stepstowards 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.

Centralised bank account registers (CBRs)

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 centralisedbank account registers:

Croatia - FINA, Germany - BaFin, France - FICOBA,Italy - National Tax Register, Portugal – Banco dePortugal, Romania – National Agency of FiscalAdministration and Slovenia - AJPES.

Belgium has a central point of contact at the NationalBank which performs a similar role.Some countries, e.g. Bulgaria, Czech Republic,Finland, Hungary, Slovakia and Spain are currently consideringto 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 request of a foreign competent authority (ARO, FIU) without the need for an MLA procedure19

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.

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58 Members

Europol, Egmont Group, Eurojust, International Criminal Court (ICC), International Monetary Fund (IMF), Interpol, OLAF, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), World Bank

9 International Organisations:

48 Countries / Jurisdictions:

CARIN

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

WORLD

CARIN

ARINSA

RRAG

Burkhard Mühl, MASenior Specialist

Europol Criminal Assets BureauTel.: +31(0)703531623

Mobile: +31(0)652560497burkhard.muhl@europol.europa.eu

Thank you for your attention!