Treaty Office

The aim of this Convention is to facilitate international co-operation and mutual assistance in investigating crime and tracking down, seizing and confiscating the proceeds thereof. The Convention is intended to assist States in attaining a similar degree of efficiency even in the absence of full legislative harmony.

Parties undertake in particular:

• to criminalise the laundering of the proceeds of crime;
• to confiscate instrumentalities and proceeds (or property the value of which corresponds to such proceeds).

For the purposes of international co-operation, the Convention provides for:

• forms of investigative assistance (for example, assistance in procuring evidence, transfer of information to another State without a request, adoption of common investigative techniques, lifting of bank secrecy etc.);
• provisional measures: freezing of bank accounts, seizure of property to prevent its removal;
• measures to confiscate the proceeds of crime: enforcement by the requested State of a confiscation order made abroad, institution by the requested State, of domestic proceedings leading to confiscation at the request of another State.

• Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism (CETS No. 198).
• Translations sorted by non-official languages.
• Note for information - Accession to the Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime by a State which is not a member of the Council of Europe.

• Directorate General Human Rights and Rule of Law - Economic Crime and Cooperation Division
• Directorate General Human Rights and Rule of Law - European Committee on Crime Problems (CDPC)