How to Explore the Practice of Proceeds of Crime Confiscation Across the Original Fifteen Eu Member States?

Explaining attrition: Investigating and confiscating the profits of organized crime

“…Bullock (2010: 8, 12, 13) found that financial investigations have not yet become an established part of daily policing in England and Wales. Vettori reached comparable conclusions in an EU-wide study (Vettori, 2006). Similar results were found by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå, 2008: 23) and, for the Netherlands, by Meloen et al (2003: 23–4) and the Inspectie Openbare Orde en Veiligheid (2012: 10).…”

“…Besides their relatively small number, most of the existing empirical studies do not provide a complete picture for the cases studied, that is, from the investigation of the profits of crime to the actual collection of assets, and/or lack a qualitative insight into the different phases of confiscation. As a result, knowledge of ‘the law in action’ is limited (Vettori, 2006: 20). In this article, using three data sources, we look into financial investigation, give a complete picture of the confiscation order court procedures as well as the execution of those orders for 102 convicted offenders, and provide a qualitative explanation of the facts.…”

“…Since the confiscation procedure is separated from the criminal law case, and both types of cases include the possibility to go to the appeal court and the Supreme Court, getting a final court decision on confiscation indeed takes time (see also Van Duyne et al, 2014; Vettori, 2006: 115). For half of the cases in our sample it takes at least 2.5 years to get from a decision of the district court in the criminal law case to a final confiscation order that is transferred to CJIB for execution; in a quarter of the cases it takes more than 4.5 years ( N = 82, missing data for 20 cases).…”

“…The focus has shifted from investigating, arresting and prosecuting offenders to taking away their money. In order to stimulate the seizure of criminal earnings, legislation has been implemented, specialized organizations have been set up, and available resources have been increased (Bartels, 2010: v; Brå, 2008; Hofmeyr, 2013; Levi, 2013; Vettori, 2006: 113). Several countries amended legislation to further enhance the possibilities for confiscation (Cabana, 2014: 17–18; Freiberg and Fox, 2000: 239–40; Kennedy, 2007: 33–4; Kruisbergen et al, 2012; Lusty, 2002: 345, 351).…”