OSCE supports Permanent Conference of Organized Crime Prosecutors in assessing impact of COVID-19 on prosecutors’ work

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the work of prosecutors’ offices was the focus of the fifth meeting of the Executive Board of the Permanent Conference of Organized Crime Prosecutors (PCOCP) on 12 November 2020. The meeting was held online with the support of the OSCE Mission to Serbia.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has created new opportunities for organized criminal groups to engage in international criminal activities, mainly involving corruption in procurement processes, smuggling and counterfeiting of medical supplies, pharmaceutical products and protective gear,” said Miljko Radisavljević, Head of the PCOCP Secretariat and Serbia’s Deputy Republic Public Prosecutor. “This state of affairs requires that members of the PCOCP and signatories of the Belgrade Declaration of Intent, to enhance co-operation and expand their network.”

The PCOCP stems from an initiative of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, and includes thirteen prosecution offices from EU Member States and South-Eastern European countries. The network stresses the importance of financial investigations as a tool to fight organized crime.

Umberto Severini, Head of Security Co-operation Department at the OSCE Mission to Serbia, said: “The PCOCP is an essential platform in fighting transnational organized crime by providing a forum for co-operation and information exchange in Europe and the region between member prosecution offices. The OSCE Mission initialized the platform thanks to its partnership with the Serbian authorities   and continues to support PCOCP and to provide incentives for new members to join the network.”

The OSCE Secretariat supports the PCOCP through an extra-budgetary project on the recovery of assets from organized criminals, implemented jointly by the Transnational Threats Department (TNTD) and the Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities (OCEEA) with the financial support of the United States Department of State, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Iris Pilika, co-manager of the project and OCEEA Programme Officer, updated the meeting’s participants on the project’s ongoing and future activities.