What is the Office for Asset Recovery and Management (ORGA)?
It is a body of the General State Administration whose function is to assist judicial bodies and prosecutor’s offices to locate, recover, conserve, administer and sell products, goods, instruments and proceeds derived from crimes committed by a criminal organization and for the most serious financial crimes, specifically related to Article 127 bis of the Criminal Code (drug trafficking, money laundering, human trafficking, corruption, large frauds, terrorism, etc.)
Nonetheless, at the request of this Office, with a prior judicial authorization, goods of all types of crimes can be also managed.
The Office’s actions are aimed at locating and recovering goods derived from crime, to be brought before a court, with the aim of confiscating them.
The ultimate goal is to deprive criminals of the proceeds obtained illegally and to ensure that, once the corresponding victim compensations have been paid out, part of the amounts confiscated are returned to society through projects to assist victims and fight against organized crime.
To this end, this Office has two key functions:
1. Asset Inquiry. At the request of the judicial bodies and prosecutor’s offices, it locates assets in and outside Spain, whether they are in the name of the persons under investigation (nominal ownership) or those in which there are signs of concealment of the real ownership.
For this purpose, the Office can access many national databases and share asset information with analogous international bodies and, in particular, with foreign offices for the asset recovery. For asset investigation, the Office can resort to National Police and Civil Guard officers performing judicial police functions.
2. Management of frozen, seized or confiscated goods. If requested by the court, the ORGA can manage the goods frozen, seized or confiscated to avoid uneconomical actions and obtain the maximum profits, while observing the law and all procedural guarantees.
It either undertakes a specific action requested by the judicial body, or if management is requested with no further details, it conducts an analysis of the type of goods, their possible depreciation and conservation costs to issue a proposal which, if authorized by the judicial body, it then carries out. This proposal may consist of, among others, one or several of the following actions:
- In the case of funds frozen, seized or confiscated, they are deposited in a Deposit and Appropriation Account of the Office.
- If necessary, measures to be adopted for the conservation and administration of goods.
- Authorization for the provisional use of the goods seized or confiscated.
- Sale of the goods, including advance sale of the goods seized or confiscated.
- Destruction of the goods.
It can manage all types of goods: vehicles, vessels, textile products and merchandise, oil products, coins, jewels, precious metals, works of art, recycling of waste to obtain a financial return (cars with no market value, bare copper, etc.)
Adjudication Committee of goods derived from crimes
This Committee closes the loop of ORGA’s purpose: to locate goods, manage them efficiently and, once civil liabilities connected to the proceedings have been settled when applicable, part of the remaining confiscated goods is dedicated to social purposes, primarily projects to assist victims and fight against organized crime, including:
- Support for programmes to serve crime victims, both of the Public Administration and non-governmental organizations or non-profit private entities, with special attention given to victims of terrorism, gender-based violence, human trafficking, violent crimes and against sexual freedom, as well as victims with disabilities requiring special protection and victims who are minors.
- Promote and provide means to the Victim Support Offices.
- Support social programmes aimed at preventing crime and handling criminals.
- Intensify and improve actions for the prevention, investigation, prosecution and repression of crime.
