Corruption offences can be difficult to identify and investigate, as they mostly occur covertly. Thus, a significant proportion of corruption crime remains undetected, and the criminal parties are able to benefit from the proceeds of their corruption. The longer it takes to detect a corruption offence, the more difficult it is to uncover evidence. Therefore, it should be ensured that law enforcement and competent authorities have appropriate investigative tools to gather relevant evidence of corruption offences which often affect more than one Member State. Furthermore, Member States should allocate sufficient training, in close coordination with the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL), including on the use of investigative tools to successfully carry out proceedings and the identification and quantification of proceeds of corruption in the context of asset recovery and confiscation. In addition, this Directive facilitates the gathering of information and evidence by setting out mitigating circumstances for offenders that help the authorities. The training of law enforcement and the judicial authorities should concern criminal investigation and criminal proceedings of offences falling within the scope of this Directive.
Text as published in the Official Journal, reproduced verbatim (including any typographical quirks of the source). For the authentic version, see EUR-Lex.
