THE HAGUE, 5th April, 2024 (WAM) -- Over a third of the most-threatening criminal networks in the European Union are laundering their profits through real estate, Bloomberg quoted a Europol report on organised crime across the region as saying on Friday.
Europol, the EU agency for law enforcement cooperation, found that among the criminal groups that pose the most serious threat, 41 percent used property to launder their illicit proceeds, with luxury items, cash-intensive businesses such as hospitality, and cryptocurrencies as popular methods.
“There is almost no actor in the serious and organised crime landscape who is not linked, in one way or another, to a sector of the legal economy, whether to commit the criminal activity, to disguise the criminal activity, or to launder their criminal profits,” according to the report.
The report identifies 821 criminal groups — with an overall membership of over 25,000 — that pose the highest-risk to the bloc, and warned they are able to “inflict significant damage on the EU’s internal security, rule of law, and economy.”
The gangs are borderless, international and their most common activity is drug trafficking, with half involved in the illegal narcotics trade, the report found. Other activities that the criminal groups are involved in include fraud, property crime, migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings.