View from Germany: Europol reveals 400,000-strong organized crime network spanning 118 nationalities

Foreign gangs operating across Europe are making huge profits. A kaleidoscope of 118 diverse nationalities killing, trafficking women, dealing drugs, and wreaking havoc across Europe? This might not be exactly what the European Union had in mind when it repeated the mantra that “diversity is our strength,” but it is the reality it will have to deal with.

Europe is facing an organized crime landscape more sophisticated, transnational, and resilient than ever before — one that Europol says now resembles a network of “corporations of crime” rather than traditional street gangs. Albanian, Turkish, Moroccan, Balkan and many other foreign gangs dominate drug trafficking, extortion, human smuggling, and street violence.

In its latest report, “Decoding the EU’s Most Threatening Criminal Networks: Issue 2 — The Blueprint of Criminal Opportunism,” Europol identified 731 active criminal networks operating across EU territory, comprising more than 400,000 members from 118 different nationalities. That figure represents a fivefold increase from just two years ago, according to Austrian outlet exxpress — though the jump reflects a shift in Europol’s methodology as much as raw growth in criminal numbers.

The networks are far from static. Of the 821 networks identified in Europol’s first assessment in 2024, 76 percent no longer rank among the bloc’s most threatening groups, but Europol’s leadership was quick to warn against reading that as a victory.

Foreign organized criminal gangs are costing Germans billions, according to a new report from the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). According to the BKA report, criminal gangs in Germany caused damage worth €2.7 billion last year, more than double the previous year’s figure and almost three times the average of the past 10 years.

“It reflects merely what the member states are observing in their investigations,” acting Europol Deputy Director Jürgen Ebner said at the Brussels press conference, according to German-language reporting. In other words: dismantled networks are simply being replaced. A core of 198 of the original networks has persisted, while 533 entirely new or newly detected groups have taken their place — bringing the total back up to 731.

“All crime is fueled online, accelerated by AI and technology,” Ebner said. According to him, these networks rely on significant financial resources, increasingly sophisticated methods, and high levels of corruption, functioning as interconnected international cells within the EU and beyond.

Crime hiding in plain sight

Perhaps the most alarming finding: 85 percent of the most threatening networks now use legitimate business structures to mask their activities, according to Europol, which blurs the line between the legal economy and organized crime almost beyond recognition.

European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner framed the scale of the problem bluntly. “We’re not talking about street gangs,” he said at the press conference, “but about real multinational crime syndicates.” According to Brunner, criminal organizations increasingly identify profitable markets, invest resources strategically, and expand operations wherever financial opportunity exists — just like legitimate multinational businesses. Lawyers, accountants, and real estate professionals are deliberately recruited to funnel illicit profits into the legal economy.

Police in Berlin say a new criminal network linked to migrant gangs is spreading fear across the German capital after a string of shootings, grenade attacks, and large-scale extortion attempts targeting local businesses.

Drug trafficking remains the dominant criminal market, anchored by cocaine and synthetic drugs, with one in five of the most threatening networks tied directly to Latin America. But the networks’ reach extends into cybercrime, migrant smuggling, human trafficking, fraud, organized property crime, and money laundering — and increasingly into recruiting children. According to Europol, 6 percent of the identified networks actively recruit children between the ages of 8 and 17 for high-risk tasks ranging from drug deliveries to extreme violence.

Dismantling networks, not just arresting individuals

Europol’s message is that arrests alone will not solve the problem. When a top criminal target is taken off the street, demand and profit opportunities remain in place, allowing someone else to step in immediately.

“Our goal is not just to arrest individuals, but to dismantle criminal networks, target their command structures and deprive them of their assets and profits,” said Themistos Arnaoutis, the Cypriot police chief.

“The strength of criminal networks lies in their ability to operate across borders,” Arnaoutis said. “Our strength must therefore lie in our ability to work beyond these.”

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