Menace to society: Criminal gangs in Europe are infiltrating the legal world, Europol says
Criminal networks in the European Union are penetrating legal businesses across the 27-nation bloc and rely heavily on corruption to develop their activities. That’s the bleak picture emerging from a report published Friday by the EU crime agency. Europol has identified 821 particularly threatening criminal networks with more than 25,000 members in the bloc. It says 86% of those networks are able to infiltrate the legal economy to hide their activities and launder their criminal profits. It says the structure of the networks is borderless, with 112 nationalities represented among their members.