Criminal asset forfeiture

Since the latter part of the 20th Century, governments have sought new approaches to curb the impact of organized crime on economic development, democracy, and the rule of law. Its threat to society is partially caused by the high financial profits that organized crime often is supposed to generate. Governments are of the opinion that crims should not pay, and often cite these threats as reasons to explain their intervention. This is one of the reasons they try to reduce the availability of the proceeds of crime in order to destabilize the structure of organized crime. They attempt to do so by two means: condiscation of the procedds of crime and criminalization of money laundering. The focus of this book and research is on the confiscation and more specifically criminal asset forfeiture of the proceeds of crime. The author examine the situation in The Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States of America. In order to address the issue of its and effectiveness, the legal foundations of criminal asset forfeiture should be understood. Chaper 1 therefore describes the historical development. Here we will see whether there are some indications in the fundamental roots of the instrument that could lead to its failure or success. For the same purpose chapter 2 focuses on the substantive legislation regarding the contemporary instrument in the 3 countries. The next step is then to look into the application of the instrument. Therefore chapter 3 deals with the procedural aspects, followed by a description of the execution of forfeiture orders in chapter 4 and some of the problems related to that execution inchapter 5. Finally conclusions and recommendations can be found in chapter 6.