DUVEL

Every year Europol enables the funding of part of the activities of the European public authorities (police and gendarmerie).

Ten criminal priorities are defined by Europol for a cycle of 4 years, commonly known as “EMPACT”.

Each OAP is managed by a driver and then broken down into operational actions (OA) managed by a leader.

High Value Grants (HVGs) are intended to fund strategic and operational activities. Each OAP has an annual budget of between €230,000 and €420,000. The driver then shares out this budget amongst the leaders of his/her OAP so that they can carry out their respective actions.

Low Value Grants (LVGs) are for short-term targeted financing for operational actions. They can be requested at any point during the year in amounts ranging from €3,000 to €60,000.

As part of several legal cases on cross-border drug trafficking the Central Office for the Repression of the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs (OCRTIS – Office Central pour la Répression du Trafic Illicite des Stupéfiants) under the Central Directorate of the French judicial police and the Belgian Federal Police’s Central Directorate on the fight against serious and organised crime (DJSOC – Direction centrale de lutte contre la criminalité grave et organisée) are working with a joint investigation team.

The team targeted an organised crime group involved in drug trafficking that it wished to dismantle.

The project has been implemented in several phases :

• Information gathering
• Implementation of surveillance missions
• Identification of traffickers and their modus operandi
• Meeting of investigators

Beacons funded by EUROPOL have, amongst other things, led to the arrest of drug traffickers and the discovery of cocaine in January 2019 by the joint French-Belgian investigation team.