Senior magistrates ask for more resources to fight financial delinquency

“The fight against financial delinquency remains one of the poor relations of the criminal chain,” warn 130 magistrates in an article published by “Le Monde” on Monday.

They are calling for more resources to carry out investigations, particularly in the fight against organized crime. In two columns published by The worldMonday April 8, several dozen senior magistrates are calling for more human and material resources to fight against international financial delinquency.

In a first forum, 130 magistrates affirm that “the fight against financial delinquency is a profitable investment for the budget and vital for democracy and the rule of law.” It therefore requires, in their eyes, “a new impetus from public authorities” who should do it “a great national cause”. Among the signatories, the Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau, the general prosecutors of Versailles and Nîmes, Marc Cimamonti and Xavier Bonhomme, the leaders of the financial center of Paris or the investigation centers of Nanterre, Lyon or Bobigny. Neither the financial prosecutor Jean-François Bohnert, nor his magistrates from the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office signed this text.

The signatories welcome the recruitment of justice personnel “massive” announced, but alert on “the deterioration of the conditions of the struggle” against this financial dispute. According to them, it is “one of the poor relatives of the criminal chain”, compared to the fight against “drug trafficking, organized crime, terrorism or public crime”.

Organized crime “exploding”

In a second forum, 120 magistrates from the National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organized Crime (Junalco) of Paris, as well as the eight specialized interregional jurisdictions (JIRS) of France, affirm “today suffer the weight of a lasting lack of resources” in the fight against organized crime, “in explosion”.

That “led investigators and magistrates to abandon, despite themselves, the financial aspects of the cases [de crime organisé]the laundering of exceptional profits through investments abroad, and the circulation of these millions of euros through parallel banking systems which are spreading”they warn.