European gangs find new ways to earn
2013-03-19 22:15
Amsterdam - Europe's economic crisis has made underworld
criminal gangs move into new kinds of illegal activities ranging from the
counterfeiting of food and medicine to illicit waste trafficking and fraud in
the energy markets, Europol said on Tuesday.
Economic crimes including fraud and corruption cost
European governments, companies, and individuals billions of euros in lost
taxes and revenues a year and hamper the region's economic recovery, the
European crime-fighting agency said in a new report on serious and organised
crime.
An estimated 3 600 organised crime groups are active in
the European Union (EU), it said, operating mainly in traditional areas such as
international drug trafficking, cybercrime, human trafficking and money
laundering.
"Many organised crime groups are flexible in their
illicit business activities and capable of quickly identifying new
opportunities that have arisen during the current economic crisis,"
Europol said.
"In response to reduced consumer spending power,
counterfeiters have expanded their product ranges. In addition to the
traditional counterfeit luxury products, organised crime groups now also
counterfeit daily consumer goods such as detergents, food stuffs, cosmetic
products and pharmaceuticals."
Europol said law enforcement sources and energy
regulators in the EU have warned of an emerging threat of fraud related to the
electricity and gas markets.
Organised crime groups such as the mafia, or cosa nostra,
are already involved in alternative energy, such as wind and solar, as well as
waste management businesses as a way of laundering profits, Europol said.
"Businesses trading on energy exchanges and transmission
system operators are noticing increasing interest from companies with little
experience in these markets, but eager to enter them as wholesale
traders," it said in the report.
"This mirrors developments observed during the
emergence of... frauds with carbon credits, in which fraudsters managed to
defraud large amounts of VAT and to almost monopolise carbon trading with 90%
of the trading in CO2 credits driven by fraud," it said without giving
further details.
