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Source: Europol
The administrator and developer of LockBit, a Russian national, is now subject to a series of asset freezes and travel bans issued by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, alongside the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.Prosecutors in the United States have also unsealed an…
Source: Europol
Officers from the Guardia Civil, working together with Europol and the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), seized 21 drums of liquid and solid chemicals used to extract and process cocaine after discovering the laboratory near Madrid.The operation, which included searches of 27 properties in the provinces of Pontevedra, A Coruña and Madrid, also led to the seizure of EUR 3…
Source: Europol
On 29 and 30 April 2024, experts from law enforcement, prosecution, judiciary, the EU and international organisations gathered at Europol headquarters to discuss the digital aspect of migrant smuggling, the first of a series of meetings as a follow-up to the Global Alliance to Counter Migrant Smuggling launched in November.Over 100 participants from 23 EU Member States and 12 non-EU…
Source: Europol
Operation PANDORA started with a bank teller in Freiburg, Germany. When in December 2023 a customer asked to withdraw over EUR 100 000 in cash, the bank teller grew suspicious and quickly learned the customer had fallen victim to a ‘fake police officer scam’. He informed the real police, which prevented the victim from handing the money over to the…
Source: Europol
The investigation, initiated in mid-2023 under the General Prosecutor’s Office in Frankfurt, Germany, targeted a criminal network currently going by the name Bandidos. The gang are suspected of trafficking large amounts of cannabis and cocaine from Málaga, Spain, to Germany. The group also smuggled weapons along the same route. The leader of the network, a German national based in Spain,…
Source: Europol
During the action week, hundreds of law enforcement officers carried out more than 630 house searches and 107 arrests. Nearly 500 converted – or ready to be converted – firearms were recovered during the operation, together with almost 900 firearms. Other weapons, such as air guns or rifles designed to fire metal pellets, were also recovered, along with over 60…
Source: Europol
A joint operation involving law enforcement authorities from France and the United Kingdom, supported by Europol, led to the dismantling of a Vietnamese criminal network smuggling migrants across the English Channel. The network was also involved in sexual and labour exploitation and money laundering.The criminal network smuggled migrants from Poland and Germany through France to the United Kingdom. The main…
Source: Europol
The recently adopted Digital Services Act (DSA) and e-Evidence legislative framework will change the way stakeholders handle cross-border evidence. As a platform for European policing solutions and to prepare law enforcement officials for these legislative changes and roll-out of the e-Evidence framework in 2026, SIRIUS, at its SPoC event, held a variety of panel sessions made up of law enforcement…
Source: Europol
Coordinated activities of law enforcement authorities from Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden, supported by Europol, targeted a large criminal network smuggling migrants from Belarus and Russia to the EU via the North Baltic route. During this coordinated action day in the framework of Europol’s Operational Task Force (OTF) Flow II, the efforts of the members of the…
Source: Eurojust
Eurojust and Europol have supported the competent authorities in Lithuania, France, Latvia, Poland, Switzerland and Georgia in an international operation against an organised crime group (OCG) that allegedly stole 170 books of high historical and cultural value across several European countries. The stolen books have an estimated value of EUR 2.5 million and were written by well-known Russian novelists such as Pushkin, Gogol and Lermontov.
Eurojust assisted the authorities in coordinating the actions and in setting up and funding a joint investigation team (JIT) into the case.
The perpetrators, of Georgian origin, are believed to have committed robberies in libraries located in France, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Switzerland.
The OCG used different modus operandi to steal the books. In some cases, the OCG members used fake identities when ordering books in the libraries, for example presenting themselves as researchers. While one OCG member pretended to consult with the library staff, thereby distracting security, another replaced the original valuable book with a copy.
In other cases, the perpetrators simply broke into the library and stole the books. Before committing the thefts, they visited libraries and checked out books of the same type as the ones stolen.
Eurojust has supported the case since November 2023, assisting the authorities involved in the coordination of their investigations and in the determination of legal strategies. Three coordination meetings were hosted by the Agency to bring together all judicial authorities involved, in order to facilitate their judicial cooperation, and to prepare for the joint action. The Agency also facilitated the setting up of a JIT between France, Lithuania, Poland, Georgia and Switzerland in March 2024. Europol was also a participant in the JIT.
During the action day, a coordination centre was set up at Eurojust connecting simultaneously the different teams in the field in the countries where operations were taking place. The coordination centre enabled rapid cooperation and ensured that evidence and information collected were swiftly exchanged between all national authorities involved.
The coordinated operations led to the arrest of four suspects in Georgia. A total of 27 locations were searched in Georgia and Latvia. One stolen book was recovered and many other books, which have to be examined further, were also seized. Ten witnesses were interviewed and over a hundred police officers and prosecutors were involved in the operation.
With reports of rare and historical books being stolen across Europe, Europol facilitated the information exchange between the affected countries and helped to identify the main suspects. Europol’s analysis during this case helped to create links, identify leads and even uncover a theft that had not yet been discovered. Before supporting the action day, Europol held two operational meetings in its headquarters.
The following authorities took part in this investigation: