The Central Anti-Corruption Office within the French National Police (OCLCIFF Police Nationale), has coordinated several long-running operational actions, supported by Europol, which targeted forms of corruption at all levels.
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The operational activities were implemented under the EMPACT framework. This setup further increased cooperation between the specialised units of the participating countries, as well as the exchange of information on anti-corruption investigations.
In November 2023, a number of actions were implemented by authorities from Albania, Belgium, France, Greece, Ireland, Netherlands and Portugal.
Austria, Croatia, Finland Hungary, Latvia, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden have also participated in previous strategic and operational actions within the same EMPACT annual action plan against corruption.
The investigations targeted a number of corruption related crimes including bribery and kickbacks, bid-rigging, trading in influence, collusion, conflict of interest, trading of information, embezzlement, favouritism and nepotism.
The operational actions focused on corruption cases affecting politically exposed persons and foreign public officials, as well as corruption cases related to public procurement and investigations involving law enforcement and judicial authorities.
National authorities also targeted different corruption practices in private companies as well as corruption in sports.
One example is a Portuguese case, which targeted the misappropriation of funds and abuse of positions in office.
The Portuguese authorities investigated the use of public money by a political party between 2018 and 2021, which resulted in 20 searches.
In another case, the Dutch authorities arrested three suspects as part of a bribery investigation into divulging confidential information linked to a procurement procedure of an oil storage company.
This led to the seizure of EUR 2.5 million.
In a third case, the French authorities arrested an elected official who had executive functions in French overseas territories, together with two of his accomplices, directors of a company in which he had a vested interest.
The value of the public procurement contracts signed by the company, notably with the administration supervised by the elected representative, amounts to EUR 2.3 million.
During a number of action days, Europol deployed analysts to locations to cross-checked operational information in real-time against Europol’s databases and provide technical expertise.
In addition to the November actions, cases on corruption supported by Europol in the second half of 2023 resulted in the identification of 75 suspects in corruption related investigations.
Involved law enforcement authorities:
Albania: Albanian State Police (Policia e Shtetit)
Belgium: Federal Police (Office central de répression de la corruption - Police Judiciaire fédérale)
France: National Police (Police Nationale)
Greece: General Directorate of Financial and Economic crime SDOE
Ireland: National Guard (An Garda Siochana)
Netherlands: Anticorruption Centre of the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD)
Portugal: Judicial Police (Policia Judiciaria) ■
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