Leveraging legitimacy: How the EU’s most threatening criminal networks abuse legal business structures

This report delves into how criminal networks exploit legal business structures (LBS) and use corruption to deepen their grip on local communities. Building upon the report Decoding the EU’s most threatening criminal networks, which identified the 821 most threatening criminal networks in the EU, this analysis examines the extent to which these networks infiltrate LBS. It also looks into the importance of LBS as a tool for criminal networks to increase their influence.

The report specifically investigates:

• Which types of legal businesses are prone to criminal abuse or infiltration?
• Which organised crime activities are enabled by legal businesses?
• How does the legal business enable the criminal activity?
• Where are legal businesses mainly abused?

The findings will inform future operational activities, but will also serve as input to discussions on administrative and preventive measures. 

Cite this publication: Europol (2024), Leveraging legitimacy: How the EU’s most threatening criminal networks abuse legal business structure, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.