Recommendations

• Author: Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the Union (European Parliament)
• Pages: 37-41

Organised Property Crime in the EU

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3.1. Holistic approach to OPC

The diversity of OPC from country to country in Europe requires -

and preventing and controlling crime. Such

an approach would require the development of specific investigation techniques to better understand

the actors and mechanisms involved in OPC, developing a wide set of sanctions that include the

effective confiscation of the proceeds of crime, especially when committed abroad. This approach will

be comprehensive and will include the administrative approach and traditional prevention and control

approaches, as well as the development of techniques at MS level.

3.2. Legal framework

 Develop a more accurate definition of criminal organisation and participation in a criminal

activity that could easily and rapidly be implemented by MS.

 Develop a more coherent European legal framework concerning:

 The use of investigative techniques (given the great number of regional and national

bilateral agreements).

 The EU data management architecture.

 Monitor the implementation of new regulations on the mutual recognition of confiscation

orders.

3.3. Policy framework

3.3.1. The administrative approach

Encourage MS to develop an administrative approach to tackle Organised Property Crime, by:

 Making full use of the already existing legal instruments to build a coherent general framework.

 Developing specific policies on the administrative approach at a national level.

 Raising local awareness of their power and competences to tackle forms of

Organised Property Crime.

 Identifying all relevant actors and clearly specifying their competences, in order to avoid

investigative overlaps.

 Building a national database containing relevant information and making it accessible to all

national authorities.

 Encouraging judicial authorities to share their information with administrative bodies.

 Exploring forms of cooperation with the private sector.

 Developing EU guidelines that could facilitate the development of an administrative approach

across MS, while avoiding displacement effects.

 Taking into consideration the Barrier model developed within the EMPACT framework, which

lists facilitators and opportunities for MOCGs in the access to a country in terms of housing, the

use of infrastructure and communication tools, committing crimes, transport and trading, and

the use of gains (ENAA, 2020, pp. 40-45).