Meer documentenNew analysis on the EU's most threatening criminal networks
Today, the European Commission, Europol and the Cypriot Presidency of the Council of the EU are presenting a new Europol analysis of the EU's most threatening criminal networks.
While law enforcement action has disrupted criminal networks across the EU, the report shows that the threat from organised crime remains strong, adaptive and deeply embedded across Europe. The report analyses over 700 criminal networks, with more than 400,000 members from 118 countries. Meanwhile, 85% of networks use legal business structures. This underscores the scale, reach and increasingly transnational nature of the threat.
These networks are active across a wide range of serious crimes, including drug trafficking, cybercrime, migrant smuggling, trafficking in human beings, fraud and money laundering, and ‘crime-as-a-service' more broadly. They are increasingly abusing digital technologies, global trade flows and legal business structures to support and expand their criminal activities. They no longer operate in isolation, but as part of a fluid criminal ecosystem that quickly adapts to disruption, fills gaps and seizes new criminal opportunities.
Staying ahead of these threats requires law enforcement across the EU to be equally agile. Europol's findings confirm that law enforcement efforts must no longer focus only on targeting individual actors but also tackle the systems and vulnerabilities that organised crime exploits.
To address these new and evolving challenges, the Commission put forward a new proposal to strengthen Europol's mandate. This will equip Europol and Member States with the tools, resources and legal framework needed to investigate increasingly digital, cross-border and technologically advanced criminal activity. The proposal delivers on President Ursula von der Leyen's political guidelines and the EU's internal security strategy, ProtectEU.
Background
As the EU's centre for law enforcement cooperation, Europol helps Member States connect information, expertise and investigations. This is key in cross-border cases as no single national authority has the full picture of today's criminal threats. Under its strengthened mandate, Europol will enable faster and more secure information exchange, provide enhanced operational support on the ground in Member States, drive innovation and technology development for policing, and deepen cooperation with EU bodies and international partners to tackle criminal threats at both European and global level.
Europol's previous report on Decoding the EU's most threatening criminal networks was published in 2024.
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