Seizure of property in cross-border crime on the territory of Common Market
Schengen area and cross-border crime Membership in the Schengen area has long raised many questions in the context of potential benefits and risks.
The first are mainly associated with the possibility of free movement of generically various goods and people, which has certainly contributed to the revival of international cooperation of EU member states and to encouraging their citizens to travel freely between countries.
The other side of the Schengen area is a growth of risks, like national and international crime (cross- border crime).
Benefits in the form of increased opportunities of free movement of people and goods were quickly recognized and taken advantage of by international criminal groups.
This involves, for example, an easier flow of weapons, drugs and possessions derived from crime. It also facilitates illegal trading within the community, tax frauds or legalization of funds coming from criminal activity the so-called money laundering.
Protection of property in the international context The concept of asset recovery by a judicial body shall be understood broadly as: - Seizure and procedural recovery in Poland or outside its borders of property earlier lost as a result of a criminal offence, yet recoverable by the victim or - Seizure of the suspect s property in his mother country or abroad for future penalties and claims for damages.
Property seizure and recovery are associated with one of the most important elements of the strategy of the Police of Greater Poland, which is to safeguard the interests of the victim in the criminal process.
This is reflected, among others, in their efforts to achieve a positive balance of profits, that is the value of seized property and the value of the recovered property compared with the value of the goods lost or damaged as a result of crime.
These activities are in accordance with the socially acceptable process of depriving perpetrators of so-called fruit of crime, located both within the home country and abroad.
Because of the cross-border nature of crimes, property recovery-related activities are often of international character.
The European Union has long devoted much attention to issues related to prevention of taking advantage from so-called "fruit" of a crime. We shall distinguish two levels of cooperation among EU member states.
The first one is judicial cooperation (Prosecutor's Office and courts) in the area of legal proceedings. It is formal in nature and it is based on international agreements.
Its aim is to create, develop and put into practice legal instruments that allow effective legal assistance concerning seizure and confiscation of illicit profits.
In order to be able to use these mechanisms and remain effective, first the property subject to seizure must be found by the police, also beyond the borders of our country.
Hence the second level of interest for the European Union is collaboration of operational police services in the area of verification and findings.
Its goal is to expand the practical possibilities of criminal investigation abroad concerning financial investigation on illicit financial transfers, transactions and disclosure of assets by an effective exchange of information and intelligence data among law enforcement authorities.
It is usually informal and dictated by common operational needs.
In practice, this implied a significant simplification of existing procedures in order to accelerate the flow of information among the countries concerned.
The consequence of these expectations and concept was the establishment of national offices for the recovery of property in most EU countries. In Poland, this role is played by the Asset Recovery Department of the Criminal Service Bureau of National Police.
The system created in this way enables correct, quick and effective exchange of information with similar offices situated in other countries, which plays a fundamental role in providing direct access of a contact person to databases containing information relevant to the recovery of property coming from criminal acts.
However, the quality of information depends on legal systems and databases available in individual countries.
An example of positive solutions is Italy, which uses e.g. "Progetto Molecola" (Project molecule), i.e. a powerful computer system connected to multiple databases that are currently in use, including a banking system; and Romania, which is a rapidly developing European country in the area of asset recovery.
Poland belongs to the group of countries with severe restrictions on acceding bank and fiscal information databases, which frequently prevents the police from acting quickly and effectively. Western patterns indicate that this problem has long ago been recognized and solved by giving the police greater access to such information.
Currently in Poland, there are ongoing activities to create the National Register of Bank Accounts, which will be available for the police, among others.
The main activities of the General Inspector of Financial Information concentrate on blocking financial resources of entities performing suspicious transactions in international trade, which constitutes a great support for law enforcement authorities.
This institution also promotes the idea of constructive cooperation with law enforcement authorities with respect to exchange of information on entities who might be suspected of putting into circulation funds coming from a criminal activity.
Another element indispensable for effective asset recovery system in the international context is an active participation of the prosecutor's office in preparatory proceedings.
It is the prosecutor s office where we address requests to obtain permission to seize the suspect s overseas assets.
Only on condition that we obtain the prosecutor s support, can we request for international legal assistance concerning physical seizure of the suspect s property on the territory of third countries.
Without constructive cooperation between police and prosecutors, many instances of assets seizure in the home country and abroad could not have been carried out.
SIS and asset recovery Increasing the mobility of international groups resulting from facilitated travelling without any border controls resulted in the need for the application of compensatory measures aimed at ensuring a high security level of the entire zone.
One of these instruments is the Schengen Information System (SIS) - a modern tool for providing a guarantee of information security. SIS is the largest database in Europe, which processes precisely defined by the law categories of persons and objects sought and entered into the system by the states of the Schengen area.
SIS is also a support for the recovery and seizure of property in the international context. Objects and stolen vehicles recorded in our databases, thanks to the SIS, are easily identifiable beyond the borders of our country and we receive feedback without any delay.
Due to the right legal provisions, we can obtain information about vehicles driven by our figurehead / suspect abroad. Then, we can easily correlate it with the places he has visited, which enables a search of his property.
Covert surveillance gives us similar opportunities, thanks to which we gather information showing where exactly we should seek our figureheads / suspects assets.
Conclusions International cooperation in the field of broadly understood asset recovery gives the Polish Police a fairly wide range of possibilities from the operational and procedural point of view.
A major problem, however, for Polish police officers, constitute legal barriers preventing access to databases, which contain important information about figureheads / suspects assets (banking or fiscal details).
This exchange is meant to improve the efficiency of local solutions, often weak ones, and through the prism of losses caused by organized crime groups - harmful for the state.
In order to eliminate these barriers, we must consistently point them out in the context of international trainings, conferences or other meetings whose main goal is to share experiences and good practices.