what does the freezing of assets for traffickers announced by the government consist of?

“We must hit drug traffickers in the wallet“: while Gérald Darmanin was in Marseille at the beginning of 2024 on the theme of the fight against drug trafficking, the Minister of the Economy also took up the subject. The freezing of the assets of drug traffickers will enter into law in 2024 , announced the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire on Monday during his greetings to economic players.

“We will toughen our response to drug trafficking: a legislative amendment will allow us this year to freeze the assets of drug traffickers, as we already do for terrorists.“, announced the minister.

Who will be targeted?

The idea displayed by Bercy is in fact to copy what is done in the fight against terrorism: prohibiting certain people from having access to their financial resources when it is considered that they are committing, facilitating or financing terrorist actions. For this, Bercy can rely either on international lists or on people targeted by the French state. The fact remains that this is a purely administrative decision, unrelated to justice, valid for six months, renewable. Note that the people targeted, not necessarily French, can appeal to the Ministry of the Interior.

Bruno the Mayor, however, remained very vague on the timetable for the law, and even more so on the famous list of people targeted, essentially drug traffickers of international stature. So who would create this file? No answer, but we know that the customs intelligence department is located in Bercy and that the Ministry of the Interior, with the Narcotics office, will be associated. On the other hand, no mention of the Ministry of Justice which nevertheless has its agency for managing assets confiscated in judicial investigations.