In 2024, agreements were made at the European level regarding the more effective confiscation of criminal assets. To comply with these agreements, the law in the Netherlands is now also being amended. With a similar criminal procedure within Europe, better cooperation with other EU member states can also be achieved. Furthermore, the national offices for the confiscation of assets of the member states will collaborate more closely, and seized items can be sold in more cases before a criminal case has concluded. This reduces storage space and storage costs.

Minister of Justice and Security David van Weel: Confiscating criminal assets is essential against the criminal profit model. This hits criminals the hardest and prevents them from investing money in their criminal activities. With this new bill, goods and money can also be confiscated without prior conviction if the criminal origin is proven. The strength of the new method lies in reversing the current approach: it is no longer the person, but the criminally earned money and goods that will be central. This can make confiscation much more effective. What can really make a difference here is that the ball is more in the court of the stakeholders. If the Public Prosecution Service has made it plausible that the item is derived from a crime, the stakeholder will have to provide a good and substantiated explanation of the origin to prevent losing it.

An example is if a large sum of money is found in a crawl space of a house, where there is a suspicion that it has a criminal origin. Or money earned through cybercrime or other forms of online crime. In these forms of crime, the individuals behind them are often anonymous. The criminal assets can often be tracked and traced back to a criminal offense, but because there is no concrete suspect, prosecution cannot be initiated. With this bill, it can now be ensured that the money is confiscated and removed from the criminal circuit.

The intention to expand the possibilities for confiscating criminal assets through the implementation of the confiscation directive has been announced in the coalition agreement.