Europe Region

Background

In Europe, OPDAT supports justice sector institutions to effectively investigate, prosecute, and adjudicate complex criminal cases, particularly those involving transnational organized crime, corruption, trafficking in persons, and terrorism. OPDAT’s programs are funded by the Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) and the Bureau of Counterterrorism. All the programs build strong foreign partners who can work with the United States to enhance cooperation in transnational cases and to fight crime before it reaches our shores.  OPDAT provides technical assistance through bilateral programs in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Georgia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Romania, and Ukraine. RLAs also delivers technical assistance through regional projects based in Croatia, Bulgaria, Latvia, and Cyprus. Moreover, OPDAT maintains targeted engagements with Greek and Polish counterparts through Intermittent Legal Advisors (ILA) stationed in the United States.

Selected Issues

Ukraine: OPDAT RLAs have been posted at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv since 2005, with only a one-year hiatus following the 2022 Russian invasion. Engagements have focused on combatting corruption and transnational crime; efforts to enact new justice sector legislation (including a modern criminal procedure code, financial reporting requirements for public officials, and asset confiscation laws); the establishment of dedicated anti-corruption institutions; and the development of the Training Center at the Ukraine Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO). Most notably, OPDAT was instrumental in standing up Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), which OPDAT continues to closely advise, with a degree of trust and access wholly unique among international partners.

A key aspect of Ukraine’s effective anti-corruption efforts has been accountability for the significant funds and resources provided by the United States and other international partners to support Ukraine both during the conflict and its anticipated aftermath. For example, OPDAT has partnered with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) Center for Audit Excellence to work with the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine to improve the Chamber’s ability to effectively audit and account for funding streams.

Moving forward, OPDAT also anticipates advising Ukrainian war-crimes prosecutors on best practices and reforms for holding war criminals accountable both domestically and internationally, while effectively adjudicating the substantial caseload of such offenses.

Terrorism and Foreign Terrorist Fighters: Terrorism, and the return of Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) pose significant security threats across the Balkans. To address this, OPDAT provides technical assistance across the region, and in particular to Albania, BiH, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. OPDAT’s support mainly targets investigators and prosecutors handling terrorism or FTF cases, and leverages legal analysis and legislative drafting to strengthen terrorism laws and sentencing reform. OPDAT, working closely with DOJ’s National Security Division, has assisted prosecutors in the region to obtain more than 305 terrorism-related guilty dispositions since 2015.

Battlefield Evidence: OPDAT facilitates sharing information and evidence seized from the battlefield, or other locations, with European partners and allies to support criminal cases against terrorists and FTFs in civilian courts.  Foreign law enforcement counterparts seeking access to this information often are stymied by the lack of efficient processes for disseminating battlefield evidence and evaluating its contents for declassification and use in civilian criminal proceedings. To meet these challenges, OPDAT has worked with the U.S. European Command in Germany and other partners to develop a whole-of-government approach to enabling the use of military intelligence in civilian judicial proceedings against terrorists and FTFs. Consequently, the use of battlefield evidence has become more routine in Balkan prosecutions and sentencings.

Corruption: Effectively combating corruption is a major criterion for the EU accession process. OPDAT provides anti-corruption investigative and prosecutorial technical assistance throughout Europe and provides legislative drafting assistance to strengthen relevant legal frameworks and ensure compliance with requirements and conventions.

For example, in Albania, OPDAT was instrumental in setting up a constitutionally protected, independent, and vetted Special Prosecution against Organized Crime and Corruption (SPAK) unit, which is responsible for investigating and prosecuting high-level corruption, including securing the conviction of the former prosecutor general for concealment of funds as a public official. Other SPAK corruption cases have been brought against Albania’s former prime minister and president. One RLA is embedded in SPAK to provide intensive case-based mentoring, while another advises justice sector entities and senior-level officials on, inter alia, judicial and prosecutorial independence, and critical anti-corruption legal reforms.

Throughout the Balkans, Baltics, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, and the Mediterranean, OPDAT provides technical assistance to senior-level prosecutors on high-profile corruption cases. In 2023, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Fadil Novalic and two co-defendants were found guilty in a landmark verdict of illegally procuring 100 overpriced and   inadequate ventilators from China at a cost of approximately $6 million. (At the outset of the COVID pandemic, OPDAT—recognizing the danger posed by corrupt politicians during the pandemic—formed an Anti-Corruption Working Group of BiH prosecutors and Public Procurement Agency representatives, which examined reports of fraud and identified cases for prosecution, including this one.) In Malta, in 2024, OPDAT-mentored prosecutors froze more than €600 million and charged the former Prime Minister of Malta, former Deputy Prime Minister, the Deputy Leader of the Labor Party, and 47 others with corruption and money laundering tied to a government contract to manage public hospitals. Lastly, and in particular through its Western Balkans, Baltics, and Mediterranean regional programs, OPDAT provides extensive technical assistance focused on money laundering, sanctions evasion, and other sophisticated financial crimes tied to corruption.

Organized Crime: Organized criminal groups engage in trafficking drugs, persons, and weapons, as well as extortion and corruption. OPDAT strengthens special prosecution units in the region and provides technical assistance for investigators and prosecutors, on developing proactive investigations aimed at identifying and seizing illegal assets in complex prosecutions. In 2024, for example, OPDAT helped Albanian and Macedonian counterparts orchestrate groundbreaking takedowns and asset seizures against high-level organized crime figures and syndicates.

Digital Evidence and Online Investigations:  OPDAT, in partnership with DOJ’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and the regional International Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Advisors in Bucharest, the Hague, and Zagreb, provides technical assistance to prosecutors and investigators to obtain, analyze, and persuasively present digital evidence in criminal proceedings – which has become critical to organized crime and corruption matters. OPDAT also works with prosecutors and investigators to employ new investigative techniques using open-source intelligence, including the use of social media in criminal cases.

Human Trafficking: Trafficking in persons in Europe is closely linked to organized crime. OPDAT provides technical assistance to investigate, prosecute, and adjudicate human trafficking cases. OPDAT has provided workshops to police, prosecutors, and judges from across the Balkans on identifying, interviewing, and supporting trafficking victims, and the adjudication of such cases. OPDAT also supports the creation, management, and mentoring of law enforcement task forces for combatting human trafficking.