Piwarz calls for easier confiscation of illegal assets

According to a media report, Saxony's Finance Minister Christian Piwarz wants to take stronger action against organized crime. According to the CDU politician, it must become easier to confiscate assets acquired with laundered money. "We have to hit the criminals where it hurts them the most - with their illegally acquired wealth," Piwarz told the Leipziger Volkszeitung and Sächsische Zeitung newspapers.

Laundered money can once again finance new crimes. On Friday, Federal Minister of the Interior Alexander Dobrindt also commented on the issue. The CSU politician is therefore aiming for a reversal of the burden of proof for suspicious money: If a legal origin could not be proven here, there should be a "simplified confiscation". "This would help enormously to secure suspicious assets of considerable value," explained Piwarz according to the report.

Dobrindt had stated on Friday at the presentation of the federal situation report on the topic: "The drug business is the most dangerous field of organized crime." It is "one of the greatest threats to our constitutional state" and acts "brutally and unscrupulously, worldwide", including "influencing decision-makers".

According to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), there were 647 investigations into organized crime nationwide last year - 26 of which were attributed to the state of Saxony.