New ways in asset recovery

Abstract

It is a priority for the Hungarian investigating authorities to recover as much as possible of damages caused by criminal offenses, to deprive the perpetrators of the illegal accumulation of property, and to prevent the use of criminal property in the course of organized crime. In order to increase the efficiency of asset recovery, the Hungarian legal regulation, developed under taking into account the obligations and recommendations of international law, also attaches increasing importance to this activity. In addition to detecting the perpetrator, as a result of asset recovery activities identified as a priority, the investigating authorities have achieved significant results in a number of cases in the recent past. Both domestic and international expectations are to map the property background of criminal circles and to take it away in order to prevent further crimes, therefore in recent years a property recovery office has been set up with the status of a department of the National Investigation Bureau of the Riot Police. As of July 1, 2018, the asset recovery activity is subject to the provisions of the Act XC of 2017. With entry into force of the Criminal Procedure Act, it has become a fundamental task of criminal proceedings. However, due to its capacity, the Asset Recovery Office was no longer able to deal effectively with recovery activities of priority cases and to provide an adequate level of support to all other police forces. Due to that a two-tier asset recovery system should be established in order to increase efficiency. Our study aims to present the advantages of a two-tier asset recovery system, which is likely to enable the police to recover assets that have been passed on to criminals in the course of crime to a much greater extent, thus making their operation impossible. By increasing the efficiency of asset recovery, it can also become easier and simpler to detect and prove crimes, thus speeding up and simplifying the whole process of investigations and criminal proceedings.