Social use of illicit-gained assets

The mafia loses, and society gains when the civic sector uses confiscated illegally acquired assets for socially valuable purposes and crime prevention.

The international community actualised the social use of proceeds from crime in the Western Balkans Six, as it did ten years ago. The approach applied in Italy, Scotland and Spain aims to ensure that property seized by the state from criminals satisfies the public interest and a sense of justice. At the same time, the social use of illicit-gained assets encouraged civil society participation in crime-fighting. The key is to show loud and clear that the property that criminals once used for their dirty business now can serve the well-being of people.

Two questions arise. What happened in the last ten years in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia regarding property confiscation from criminals and its social use? How to use the current right moment and move forward when citizens and governments in the region are simultaneously worried about organised crime? More than 80 per cent of the Western Balkans Six citizens have underlined organised crime as the biggest security threat, while the fight against organised crime is formally on the list of top governments priorities.

There is an agreement in the region that confiscating illegally-gained assets and tracing dirty money are indispensable instruments in fighting organised crime. Prosecution and police professionals, and political decision-makers know that organised criminal groups will continue to amass wealth and new members without cutting their capital and income. That's why parliaments in the previous decade adopted concrete laws on property confiscation under the strong influence of the European Union and the Council of Europe. As a result, the current legal framework in the region is solid.

With the law adoption, it was accepted that fighting organised criminal underworld starts from a financial investigation by discovering illegally-gained property and money to its confiscation and management. Although there is an agreement, decision-makers have not placed the confiscation of illegally-gained property high on the political priority list. No one in the Western Balkans Six has a specific strategy for confiscating property, as is the case in Italy, but other planning documents cover this area. That is why the situation in practice is different from the law.

Institutions for conducting financial investigations and managing seized assets exist but are not sufficiently developed. Capacities for financial investigations are low, which is confirmed by the reports of the European Commission. Financial investigations are often conducted after the arrest, which is not a good solution because it allows criminals to alienate or hide assets. For example, in Serbia, an investigation into the money flows of Veljko Belivuk's organised crime group began after his arrest. Still, a ban on the alienation and disposal of property was quickly imposed.

No long-term ways to promote the social use of confiscated property exist in the region. There are more individual cases where academics, civil society activists, or investigative journalists monitor and assess whether the law is good or bad, how the institutions do their job, who and in what way received property confiscated by the state. For now, only Albania and Serbia have examples where civil society organisations socially use confiscated property, with the Albanian approach being far more transparent and competitive.

Civil society in Albania has been enabled to propose ideas for confiscating property through social entrepreneurship through a public competition. Three out of 23 proposals passed. The KinFolk Coffee Library youth club in Durres has a commercial component, which has income and a social one focused on the community's community well-being. A Buono! Social Pastry in Fier offers good pastries and cakes, connects children and parents, and empowers students, women, and young people in an environment conducive to crime. The craft shop Social Craftin Garage in Saranda allows women, victims of crime, to make handicrafts and at the same time promote local heritage and culture.

In Serbia, people with autism live in Darko Sari?'s house, while villas are given to organisations that help people with disabilities, children with cancer or young people without parental care. In addition, the property was used by milk and bread factories, agricultural companies, and hotels. However, not all of these examples are readily available on the ministry of justice directorate for confiscated property website. Moreover, the last published work report is even from 2014, where it is exhaustively stated how many houses, apartments, shops, garages the directorate has at its disposal. Non-transparency unnecessarily creates an environment of mistrust.

Civil society in the Western Balkans Six is numerous and diverse. More than 100,000 registered civil society organisations seek to change their local environment, city, municipality, state, and region as they see appropriate. Not everyone is equally active, but just over 200 organisations in the region are fighting crime and corruption. Their role is essential in the command chain of crime prevention and control. They can point out cases, spot institutional weaknesses, offer solutions, and connect relevant individuals, groups, institutions, and organisations.

The role of civil society is not only to promote the social use of confiscated property acquired by crime but also to use it, above all, for crime prevention and the common good, as in Italy. Therefore, the institutions that manage confiscated property must be transparent and provide access to records of the seized property so that civil society organisations can apply for use, which requires clear procedures. In addition, information needs to be made publicly available on how confiscated property acquired by crime has been used or how temporarily seized companies operate.

Crime assets could be invested to reduce recidivism, support victims of crime, help people with drug problems and youth. There are over 23,000 prisoners in the Western Balkans, and recidivism is a big problem. The latest report of the European Drugs Agency indicates that there has been an increase in the consumption of benzodiazepines in combination with opiates and cocaine in the Western Balkans Six. Young people are an inexhaustible topic because the world stays on them.

Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (KRIK) originally published this article on 12 June 2021 in Serbian.