lOn November 8, the Ministers of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, and Justice, Didier Migaud, announced the creation of a national prosecutor’s office dedicated to the fight against organized crime, an essential initiative against the scourge of drug trafficking. However, to be truly effective, this system must go beyond simply repressing drug trafficking and attack criminal networks as a whole. This is a major challenge, as demonstrated by a recent Europol report.
The European agency identifies 821 criminal networks made up of 25,000 members of 112 nationalities, 71% of which resort to corruption, often proactively and systematically. These organizations are flexible, transnational and extremely effective at infiltrating the economic and social fabric. They use cover-up to launder billions of euros in criminal proceeds, directly threatening democracy and economic stability. Of them, 86% infiltrate legal activities, 68% bring together members of different nationalities and 76% are present in several European countries.
This creation of a national prosecutor’s office is fully in line with the European strategy to combat organized crime, in particular against drug trafficking, a cross-border scourge that requires a concerted response. In this context, on September 25, the European Judicial Network to Combat Organized Crime (EJOCN) was inaugurated in The Hague. [Pays-Bas]within Eurojust, the Judicial Cooperation Agency of the European Union.
Designed as a center of expertise bringing together prosecutors, investigating judges and police officers, the EJOCN aims to support European judicial authorities in carrying out complex investigations into cross-border crimes. This network will allow a structured exchange of knowledge, good practices and information, thus facilitating national operations and strengthening judicial coordination between the 27 Member States of the European Union.
Strike where they are vulnerable
Faced with increasingly multi-criminal and versatile networks, EJOCN’s mission is to combat organizations involved in various fields, ranging from migrant smuggling and human trafficking to money laundering and drug trafficking. This initiative is all the more strategic since 70% of drug seizures in Europe are concentrated in European ports, nerve centers in this fight. EJOCN’s support for new national structures, such as this prosecutor’s office, will strengthen coordination and intervention capabilities, allowing criminal networks to be attacked where they are most vulnerable: in their cross-border and financial structures.
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