Top European crime gangs earning up to €1bn a year

The booming cocaine trade is dominated by Albanian, Belgian, Dutch, Italian and Spanish networks, with Albanian, Belgian, Dutch and Spanish also heavily involved in the cannabis market.

The 820 most dangerous criminal networks in the EU are, in general, earning annual profits of between several million to tens of millions of euro.

According to the first analysis of its type in Europe, some of the bigger outfits are thought to generate hundreds of millions of euro – and a select few are raking in up to a €1bn a year.

A structured and detailed mapping exercise of the “most threatening criminal networks” was conducted by analysts in Europol, the EU police agency, based on information provided by all 27 member states, including Ireland.

The “scientific” approach, as one Irish justice source described it, used a methodology devised by Europol, which the police in the member states worked on.

This asked countries to identify the most threatening gangs, explain the characteristics of these groups and thirdly spell out why they pose a heightened threat level to the internal security of the EU.

Based on this, Europol said there are 821 such networks in the EU or affecting the continent and that total membership of these groups is in excess of 25,000 people.

Of these networks:

• 50% are involved in drug trafficking, either solely or as part of a range of criminal activities
• 15% are engaged in fraud
• 8% are involved in organised property crime
• 6% are involved in migrant smuggling and 4% in human trafficking

“Generally, the estimated yearly criminal proceeds range from several millions to tens of millions or euros,” the report said.

“Some criminal networks are even thought to generate hundreds of millions in illicit funds, with a handful reaching up to a billion euros.” 

The report said fraud networks, including those involved in investment and romance fraud, can generate “hundreds of millions [of euro] in a short period of time”.

It said a third of the networks are in operation for more than 10 years. Typically, the gangs identified range between eight and 38 members.

While two-thirds have members from different nationalities, a third of gangs comprised people of only one country.

The booming cocaine trade is dominated by Albanian, Belgian, Dutch, Italian and Spanish networks, with Albanian, Belgian, Dutch and Spanish also heavily involved in the cannabis market.

The report said Russians and Ukrainians are the most represented nationalities in the nine networks involved in cyber attacks.

At the launch of the report, Europol executive director Catherine De Bolle said most of the network leaders live in either the main country of their activity or their home country.

She said a small percentage live outside the EU, mainly to escape law enforcement attention, where they continue to control and coordinate their networks “from places like United Arab Emirates, Turkey and South America”.

The report said seven out of ten networks engage in corruption and that “all” member states are affected. The targets of corruption range from
police officers to public officials, including port workers, and from employees of private professions to executives in companies.