By Europol

  Due to their intrusive nature, financial and economic crimes are among the most challenging criminal activities to investigate and tackle. A fragmented landscape sees different criminal actors interact with one another, making criminal operations more complex and tangled. Key players typically remain anonymous and operate independently from established criminal structures, often from criminal safe havens. Meanwhile, their techniques and tools advance rapidly. Some recent investigations, including those exploring encrypted communications among criminals, gave unprecedented insight into the system that sustains the finances of organised crime. While law enforcement is untangling the complexity of this underground financial ecosystem, information sharing, investigative focus on key criminal actors, development of technical knowledge and expertise, and public-private partnerships are essential tools for winning the fight against financial and economic crimes. The European Financial and Economic Crime Threat Assessment describes the complexities of financial and economic crimes, and the criminal ecosystem that virtually sustains and links all other criminal activities. The report analyses all financial and economic crimes affecting the EU, such as money laundering, corruption, fraud, intellectual property crime, and commodity and currency counterfeiting. It also illustrates the power of asset recovery in the fight against financial and economic crimes. The analytical findings of this report rely on a combination of operational insights and strategic intelligence contributed to Europol by EU Member States and Europol’s partners, who provided crucial information regarding the criminals’ business models. The report is intended to capture the pervasiveness and destructiveness of financial and economic crimes affecting the EU, and to support all relevant stakeholders in untangling the large variety of financial and economic crimes.   

Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg., 2023. 58p.