The Importance of Combating Proceeds of Crime in the Fight Against Crime
The most fundamental point of fighting crime is to fight against proceeds of crime. When we eliminate the income motivation behind it, the tendency to commit crime will naturally decrease.
Criminal organizations often carry out their activities for financial gain. These revenues help them strengthen their position. Therefore, in the fight against crime, it is of great importance not only to punish the perpetrators but also to identify and confiscate the proceeds of crime.
Confiscation of Proceeds of Crime
The ultimate objective in the fight against criminal proceeds is their confiscation. Before reaching this stage, criminal proceeds are subject to seizure. Under Turkish law, ‘confiscation’ is addressed in Articles 54 and 55 of the Turkish Penal Code, which cover the confiscation of property and criminal proceeds. ‘Seizure’ is regulated in the Code of Criminal Procedure.”
These two stages are included in the judicial processes. While seizure is a judicial measure that will last until the end of the court process, “confiscation” will be a decision made as a result of the court proving the existence of income obtained from crime.
Confiscation, in the context of criminal law, is the transfer of assets to state ownership by court order. It is generally divided into two main types:
- Criminal Confiscation: Confiscation of proceeds obtained from crime by court order after the crime and the proceeds obtained from crime are proven.
- Civil Confiscation: The seizure of property on the grounds that it is related to a crime, without the need for criminal prosecution.
Civil confiscation is an effective tool, especially in cases where the crime is difficult to prove. However, there is no legal regulation in our country in this direction. Confiscation can only be done by court order.
The confiscation process means much more than just punishing the individual perpetrator. Some of its important results can be listed as follows:
Provides deterrence: Knowing that the proceeds of crime will be permanently lost, perpetrators are more cautious about committing crimes. Confiscation increases the “cost of crime” by eliminating the economic gains from crime. This creates deterrence and provides a strategic measure to prevent recurrence of crime. Provides social order.
Opportunity for compensation for the victim: In some cases, confiscated assets can be used to compensate the victims for their losses.
It ensures the protection of public resources: The confiscation and transfer of criminal proceeds to the state prevents the integration of illicit gains into the legal economy.”
International Practices and Collaboration
Many countries are acting within the framework of international cooperation against proceeds of crime. Institutions such as FATF (Financial Action Task Force), UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Council of Europe guide countries in identifying, freezing and confiscating proceeds of crime. Data sharing and legal assistance between countries are essential for tracking assets and joint confiscation decisions, especially in cross-border crimes. The fight against proceeds of crime can only yield effective results if there is international cooperation.
The Deferred Process: Tracing the Proceeds of Crime
Prior to the judicial measures of confiscation and seizure, an administrative measure exists in the fight against criminal proceeds—namely, the ‘suspension’ or ‘postponement of transactions’ stage, as regulated under Article 19/A of Law No. 5549.” In daily parlance, this process is also called “MASAK blockage”.
Suspension of transaction, as defined in the article of the Law, is the practice of suspending or not allowing transactions that are attempted to be made or are currently ongoing with or through obligors, as part of the effective fight against money laundering and financing of terrorism, in cases where there is suspicion that the subject matter of the transaction is related to the crime of money laundering or financing of terrorism.
Criminal investigations triggered by transaction postponement and financial intelligence analyses may ultimately lead to court decisions for the confiscation of criminal proceeds. This process—from the reporting of suspicious transactions and the postponement of transactions to final confiscation—plays a critical role in preventing money laundering and reducing the risk of recurrence of crime.
A MASAK blockage is the first stage of a process that will ultimately lead to confiscation.
From a broader perspective, before the blocking stage, the obligor or MASAK must constantly check the transactions and detect suspicious, risky situations, and the existence of income items that may be related to crime. As an administrative measure, the institution of “transaction postponement” (MASAK blocking) is the most important function of a Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).
In this respect, the work process in the Financial Intelligence Unit will be as follows:
Effectiveness of Transaction Suspension
If our ultimate goal in combating crime and criminal proceeds is to confiscate criminal proceeds, we need to observe how many of the transaction suspension result in confiscation and measure our accuracy and success rate in the suspension process.
The accuracy and fairness of this assessment depends, of course, on the cooperation between institutions and the effective functioning of judicial processes.
According to the 2024 activity report, a total of 15,768 transaction postponement requests were submitted to MASAK in 2024, and a decision to postpone transactions was made for 4,994 of them (32%).
It is very difficult to determine how many of these were investigated, how many were sued and eventually confiscated. This is because the Ministry of Justice General Directorate of Criminal Records and Statistics does not publish such data. On the other hand, this year’s confiscation decisions are most likely related to incidents related to blocking decisions from one or two previous years.
Conclusion and Recommendation
In the fight against crime, not only the punishment of the criminal but also the elimination of the proceeds of crime is of great importance. While the process of suspension serves as the first line of defense in determining the proceeds of crime, the confiscation process creates a permanent effect by eliminating the economic motivation of the crime.
An effective mechanism to combat proceeds of crime plays a key role in establishing justice by targeting not only the perpetrators but also all elements of the criminal economy.
Starting from the suspicious transaction notification, the transaction postponement and finally the confiscation process must be followed and its data must be recorded. In this way, we will finally have very important information on which types of suspicions and blockages are valid, which are not and no results can be obtained.
Confiscation, seizure and postponement of proceedings are very important institutions, but when the ball of the scale is missed, it can also lead to unlawful consequences for the citizen. Therefore, it has the potential to distance us from the desired goal. Insufficient analysis capacity, lack of reasonable doubt, and long trial processes feed such negative consequences.
If these conditions are improved, these institutions will increase their effectiveness in the fight against crime.
On the other hand, if the use of confiscated goods for social purposes is encouraged, there will be a good motivation in the society to fight crime and criminal proceeds. In other words, the motivations need to be changed: the motivation of the criminal organization to obtain criminal proceeds needs to be channeled to increase the motivation of the society to fight crime. This is achieved by using the confiscated criminal proceeds for social purposes in a visible way and offering them to the service of the society. For example, establishing attraction centers such as youth centers or rehabilitation centers that will attract young people with the confiscated proceeds obtained from drug crimes in a region that is victimized by drugs.
