Fighting Economic Crime — Action Taken in the European Union

During the 1980s, the fight against economic crime, including money laundering, was already very high on the political agenda in most of the European states. According to different studies, organised crime was controlling major parts of the economy in some Eastern European countries, infiltrating the Western economies and investing, for example, in real estate on the Mediterranean coast and in the major European cities. There was a growing awareness that economic crime has an evident influence on the rise of organised crime and that combating money laundering is one of the most effective means in the fight against this form of criminal activity.