High-Risk Criminal Networks (HRCN) are today among the most serious threats to security in Europe. These organized groups operate internationally, with fluid, profit-driven structures, and often exploit the legal world to facilitate or hide their criminal activities.
In response to the evolving tactics of HRCNs, the European Commission and national and EU law enforcement agencies have emphasized the urgent need to identify and understand the most dangerous criminal networks.
A Project to Understand and Prevent
PREVENT – Building capacity against high-risk criminal networks in the EU: from an improved intelligence picture towards an integrated prevention approach is co-funded by the European Union through the Internal Security Fund 2021–2027.
The project involves six European countries and aims to:
- Conduct an in-depth analysis of HRCNs and their infiltration into the legal economy;
- Strengthen the intelligence framework available to authorities;
- Promote an integrated prevention approach combining research, cooperation, and social innovation.
Project Objectives
PREVENT focuses on four main goals:
- Strengthening intelligence on HRCNs – improve data collection and analysis on criminal networks and their resources, fostering collaboration between researchers and institutions.
- Promoting effective administrative approaches – identify and share best practices for countering HRCNs at both national and EU levels.
- Encouraging social reuse of confiscated assets – involve stakeholders at all levels (local, national, European) to transform confiscated goods into innovative tools for crime prevention.
- Enhancing cooperation for confiscation and reuse – increase the effectiveness of confiscation and redistribution processes through strong collaboration among all relevant actors.
Toward Integrated and Collaborative Prevention
PREVENT aims to strengthen Europe’s capacity to prevent, detect, and counter high-risk criminal networks by combining research, intelligence, social innovation, and cross-border cooperation.
Thanks to the involvement of Libera and its partners, the project demonstrates how collaboration and social reuse of confiscated assets can become practical tools in the fight against organized crime.
