Law enforcement officers will be able to confiscate assets transferred by the suspect, defendant or convicted person to third parties or legal entities. This will be possible if third parties knew that the assets were transferred to avoid confiscation or if they remained in the beneficial ownership of the person under investigation. The MPs gave a final reading to a draft law that aims to improve the mechanism of confiscation of criminal assets, IPN reports.

Under the amendments made to the Criminal Code, it will be possible to confiscate another equivalent asset or its equivalent value if it is impossible to confiscate the assets for a certain reason. Likewise, it will also be possible to confiscate the income or benefits obtained by using the criminal assets.

The document also contains amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure, which is supplemented with the notion of "beneficial ownership" in order to emphasize the relationship between the real control over an asset and economic rights, regardless of the formal title.

The legislative initiative also amends the Enforcement Code. More specifically, the State Tax Service will be empowered to execute court decisions in criminal matters.

If it is necessary to identify the assets seized abroad, the Service could seek help from the Criminal Assets Recovery Agency, including for tracking the assets held through third parties.

Other provisions refer to the extension of the duties of the Criminal Assets Recovery Agency, which will be able to carry out financial investigations and to manage the information system for recording seized assets.