Confiscation of instrumentalities and proceeds of corruption crimes in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Slovenia
, the case was heard on conviction of the judge for bribery. The judge, directly himself and 
through the intermediary, contacted the accused person in the criminal case that was referred for hearing to 
the district court, where he used to work. He promised to the accused person to give assistance in his criminal 
case, including appointing himself as the Chief Judge in the case, providing the documents, relating to the 
case to him, etc. For this assistance, he and the intermediary requested from the accused person the amount 
of EUR 50 000; EUR 8 000 of which were received by the judge. In the result of covert search activities 
there were ascertained the time and amount of received money, which the judge deposited in the bank 
account. By that time the cash funds were taken out. The court ordered to confiscate money from the accused 
judge to the amount of EUR 12 000. 

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A number of interesting cases in the context of confiscation of corruption assets have been heard in 
Croatia
. 
One of those cases was a case on corruption in the Tax Administration. In April 2009, after the investigation 
was completed, the USKOK forwarded the indictment to the County Court of Zagreb against the Person 1 
convicted of accepting a bribe and against the Person 2 and Person 3 convicted of aiding bribery. The 
defendants, who had been the officials of the Ministry of Finance, were accused of extortion and receiving 
the bribe, under conspiracy, from director of the company in November-December of 2008 in Zagreb. They 
requested EUR 50,000 for the following action: Person 1, being the Head of the Tax Administration Office 
in Zagreb, shall not identify the violations in the commercial operations of this company during conducting 
the tax control, which was within the scope of his powers. The Person 2 sent the request about this to director 
of the company. Later on, the Person 2 and Person 3 a few times extorted the requested amount of money 
from him. On 11 February 2009, the director of the company handed over EUR 35,000 to the Person 2, who 
shared the above amount with the Person 1 in such a way that each of them received the amount of EUR 
17,500. In March of 2009, the court, based on the application of the Prosecutor’s Office, applied temporary 
measures against the accused Person 1, his mother, one more person and the accused Person 2, resulted in 
prohibition of disposal and encumbrance of their real estate (apartments, land, and pastures).
The Court of Zagreb convicted the accused Person 1 of receiving a bribe, and the accused Person 2 and 
Person 3 of aiding bribery. In accordance with paragraph 1 of Article 80 of the Criminal Court, the Court 
applied confiscation of the target of crime: EUR 17,500 was confiscated from both Person 1 and Person 2. 
Moreover, in accordance with paragraphs 1,2 and 5 of Article 82 of the Criminal Code, and based on the 
application of Articles 559 and 560 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the pecuniary gain in the amount of 
Croatian Kuna 9 481 was confiscated from the accused Person 1. According to paragraphs 1,2,3, and 5 of 
Article 82 of the Criminal Code, and based on the application of Articles 559 and 560 of the Criminal 
Procedure Code, the pecuniary gain in the amount of Croatian Kuna 1,063,609.87 was confiscated from 
mother of the accused Person 1. In the abovementioned judgment, the Court explained in details its decision 
on confiscation of the proceeds of crime, and noted in the conclusion that the assets of the Person 1 (the 
public official of the Tax Administration) were recovered proportionally, moreover, the assets owned by his 
wife, mother and father, were compared with their incomes, personal expenses and interest rates on loans; 
as a result, the significant discrepancy in the amount of Croatian Kuna 1,433,765.87 was found.
Since the Person 1 provided evidence to prove more likely his previous savings in the amount of Deutsche 
Marks 100,000, the equivalent of this amount in Kuna was deducted from the settlement amount. Besides, 
after some analysis, the court found that the discrepancy was the result of the criminal model of behaviour 
of the accused Person 1. The court noted that, during decision-making on the extended confiscation of the 
proceeds of crime, the court assumed, at the initial stage of this case, that all assets owned by the Person 1 
and his parents were acquired through the criminal activity. During the proceedings, the Person 1 convinced 
the court about probability of acquisition of the part of assets legally from his savings and savings of his 
wife. Taking this fact into consideration, as well as the fact that it was impossible to determine for each real 
estate item owned by the Person 1 and his parents, whether they were acquired legally or illegally and in 
what proportion (so-called ‘intermingled’ property), the court applied the so-called ‘extended confiscation 
of pecuniary gain’, and, therefore, confiscated the amount of money, whereas the order for arrest of the 
property disposal was imposed as the preliminary injunction. In explanation of its decision, the court had 
emphasized that the purpose and idea of the extended confiscation of pecuniary gain as a special measure in 
the criminal law was the accurate implementation of the basic principle, based on which no one should gain 
profits from crime, which was the main general rule and the specific preventive measure, taking into account 
that, in particular, gaining such profits was the basic motive and incentive, which stands behind any planned 
intended or committed corruption crime. 
There was one more case in Croatia related to corruption in football. In December 2010, on completion of 
investigation, the USKOK filed a charge in the County Court of Zagreb against 19 citizens of Croatia and 2 
citizens of Slovenia convicting them for conspiracy to commit a crime, a few facts of giving and accepting 
bribe, fraud, and illegal intermediation. The case was about the ‘fixed’ matches with fixed results, and 
making profits from making bets in betting companies. During the investigation, the court accepted the 

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Prosecutor’s application, and in June 2010 it applied the temporary preliminary injunction against the 
accused Person 1, resulted in prohibition of disposal and encumbrance of his apartment and parking lot in 
the garage, and his son was prohibited from doing the same actions with his personal car, too. Later on, in 
June 2010, the court applied the same measures against the accused Person 2, accused Person 1, one company 
and two more persons by prohibiting disposal or encumbrance of a number of real estate objects (apartments).
During the investigation and before submitting the indictment, the USKOK concluded the agreements with 
six accused persons, who agreed to plead guilty. In February 2011, all agreements were approved by the 
court and sanctions were applied according to the conditions of agreements. Thus, in accordance with Article 
82 of the Criminal Code, the court confiscated the criminal proceeds from the accused persons, in particular, 
money in the amount of EUR 43,750 – from the accused Person 1; EUR 3,055 – from the accused Person 2; 
EUR 4,715 and Croatian Kuna 400 – from the accused Person 3; EUR 20,500 – from the accused Person 17; 
EUR 6,000 – from the accused Person 19; and EUR 4 500 – from the accused Person 20. In addition to 
pecuniary gain, which was seized, based on these court’s decisions, their real property was confiscated, too, 
based on the procedural agreements with the accused Persons 1, 2 and 3, namely, the apartment of the 
accused Person 1 and a person related to him (his wife) costing Croatian Kuna 750,300; the real property of 
the accused Person 2 and persons related to him (his company and his wife) in Porec city, costing Croatian 
Kuna 1,567,747.75 and the real property of the accused Person 3 and persons, related to him (his company 
and his wife) in Porec city, costing Croatian Kuna 1 567 747.75.
The court delivered its judgment in this case in December 2011 and found 15 persons guilty and convicted 
them of multiple different crimes. In this judgment, the court justified separately its decision on confiscation 
of pecuniary gain and determined that the amount of the gain was EUR 165,500, which was the equivalent 
of Croatian Kuna 1,200,805. In accordance with the judgement, the following amount of money was 
confiscated from the accused persons: EUR 20,500 (from the accused Person 4), EUR 15,500 (from the 
accused Person 5), EUR 28,500 (from the accused Person 6), EUR 26,500 (from the accused Person 7), EUR 
10,000 (from the accused Person 8), EUR 12,500 (from the accused Person 9), EUR 10,500 (from the 
accused Person 10), EUR 10,500 (from the accused Person 11), EUR 25,000 (from the accused Person 12), 
and EUR 6,000 (from the accused Person 20). The illegally obtained pecuniary gain in the amount of EUR 
165,500 became the property of the Republic of Croatia; therefore, the court declared that each accused 
person should make payment in the specified amount to the state budget in the national currency within 15 
days from the date, when the court’s decision came into effect. Thus, the total amount of confiscation on this 
case was Croatian Kuna 5,691,602.50. 
The analysis of the practices of application of confiscation measures, which is based on the data provided by 
the ACN countries in their answers to the questionnaire, shows that, in all countries of the CAN, the decision 
on confiscation is taken by the court, and the powers to raise the question about confiscation in the court are 
given, as a rule, to the prosecutor even in those countries that apply civil forfeiture (Albania, Georgia, 
Slovenia, and Ukraine). Bulgaria is the exception, where the Commission for Confiscation of Illegal Assets 
of Bulgaria may initiate proceedings in the court and participate in the civil proceedings as a party.
Decision on the confiscation of the property within different types of confiscation proceedings may have 
different form in the different countries of the ACN. The most typical form for application of different types 
of confiscation is the judgement of conviction, including approval of the procedural agreement or the 
judgment