In 2021, the financial damage caused by organized crime in Germany broke the billion mark for the first time. Interior Minister Faeser reacts with a new strategy. She looks with concern at the threatening conditions in neighboring European countries.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser wants to step up the fight against organized crime. The SPD politician presented her plan at the autumn conference of the Federal Criminal Police Office. The aim must be to "sustainably break up criminal structures and consistently skim off incriminated profits," says the strategy paper on combating organized crime. The ministry's proposals include an upper limit of 10,000 euros for cash payments, a transparency obligation for owners of suspicious assets and the introduction of a nationwide situation report on clan crime.
Faeser explained that the state should not allow itself to be weak in the pursuit of organized crime. "Human trafficking, drug trafficking, money laundering - all areas of organized crime have one thing in common: the perpetrators' unscrupulous pursuit of profit and power," she warned. The financial damage identified in the area of organized crime exceeded the billion mark for the first time in 2021.
Apart from the financial damage, the ministry is particularly concerned about an increasing willingness to use violence. "We see a growing danger that armed conflicts will also be directed against representatives of the state," warned Faeser. European countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden have already had "painful experiences" here. "We will not allow such developments in Germany, where public prosecutors, judges and journalists are massively threatened," said the interior minister.
Faeser's strategy is aimed at three core areas: expanding the investigative and analytical capabilities of the BKA, effective financial investigations and asset recovery, and even closer cooperation at national and international level. To this end, the security authorities are to be "significantly strengthened" in terms of personnel and finances.
The minister recently announced the planned introduction of a cash limit of 10,000 euros. The limit reduces "the risk of concealing the origin of large assets by making large transactions through traceable financial channels". The upper limit should be introduced across Europe. A ministry spokesman added that there are already such limits in some EU countries.
The Home Office is also planning measures to facilitate the attribution - and possible confiscation - of assets derived from organized crime proceeds. The ministry is committed to "enabling the competent state authorities to request information from formal owners of assets of suspicious origin about the source of the assets and who is in fact in control of them," the paper says.
This applies in particular to the real estate sector, into which large sums of money are believed to flow from organized crime. Therefore, for the first time, a nationwide central building and apartment register is to be set up, which collects information on the property and makes it accessible to the authorities.
According to the strategy paper, the federal and state governments should join forces in the fight against clan crime, and for the first time a nationwide picture of the situation should be created in order to get an overview of the phenomenon. In this context, Faeser spoke of an "alliance against clan crime".
Characteristic of clan crime is a "high degree of isolation due to family structures shaped by ethnicity, their high potential for mobilization and aggressiveness, and practiced parallel justice that negates the state's right to prosecution and calls the rule of law into question," the paper says. "However, we do not allow isolated parallel societies."
Support for Faeser's strategy came from the Bundestag. With her paper, the minister sent a "clear signal to organized crime," said SPD parliamentary group leader Dirk Wiese. "We will combat the behavior of organized crime groups with the greatest determination."
