Features of organizing the investigation of crimes against property: The experience of the EU countries
Keywords:
Ethics, Prosecutor, Property Offenses, Procedural Guarantees, Interdepartmental Coordination, Border Financial ControlAbstract
The increasing complexity of cross-border property crimes in the European Union exposes limitations in existing approaches to organizing investigations, particularly with regard to prosecutorial coordination and interaction with customs authorities. This study aims to analyze the organizational features of property crime investigations in EU Member States, focusing on prosecutorial leadership, judicial control and the limits of interference with property rights. The research is based on doctrinal and comparative legal analysis of EU legal instruments and national legislation of Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland, combined with a structured examination of 60 national supreme court decisions, 40 judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (2015–2024) and 25 institutional reports. The findings indicate that property crime investigations in the EU are organized through diverse but structurally comparable models of prosecutorial leadership, which are differentiated by the scope of prosecutorial powers, the level of judicial oversight and the institutional role of customs authorities. The analysis further demonstrates that investigative consistency is associated with structured interagency coordination and clearly defined procedural roles, particularly in cross-border and financial contexts. The scientific contribution of the study consists in developing a multi-level institutional model of property crime investigation in the EU, conceptualizing the prosecutor as a coordinating nexus between investigative, customs and supranational actors. The study also contributes to the literature by reframing investigations as integrated systems of institutional coordination rather than isolated procedural mechanisms. The results provide a conceptual basis for understanding the interaction between prosecutorial functions, judicial safeguards and supranational instruments in EU criminal justice, and indicate directions for further research on institutional coordination and proportionality standards in cross-border investigations.
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