3.1 Overview of cases by crime type in 2023

During 2023, Eurojust dealt with more than 13 000 cases across 13 categories of serious cross-border crime, ranging from cybercrime and money laundering to trafficking in human beings and environmental crime.

The top three crime types handled by the Agency in 2023 continued to be swindling and fraud, drug trafficking and money laundering. Two thirds of all cases that Eurojust worked on in 2023 involved one of these crime types. Over 4 000 cases in total focused on swindling and fraud crimes, while more than 2 400 cases dealt with drug trafficking and more than 2 200 cases with money laundering.

In addition to supporting a large number of ongoing cases from previous years across all crime types, the number of new cases referred to Eurojust increased in almost all crime categories in 2023 compared to 2022.

A significantly higher number of new cases were referred to the Agency in 2023 compared to 2022 in the areas of environmental crime (64%) and cybercrime (43%), although the overall number of cases referred to Eurojust in the former category remains low. Likewise, in 2023, national authorities requested Eurojust’s assistance in a higher number of new cases related to terrorism, migrant smuggling and corruption, with a 30% increase compared to 2022. There was also an increase of around 20% in the number of new cases handled by the Agency concerning money laundering, organised crime and intellectual property crime.

Conversely, the number of new cases referred to Eurojust in 2023 concerning trafficking in human beings decreased by 8% compared to 2022. Overall, including ongoing cases from previous years, the Agency handled 5% fewer human trafficking cases in 2023 than in 2022. The number of new human trafficking cases referred to Eurojust has been decreasing consistently since 2020.

The number of new core international crime cases referred to the Agency also dropped in 2023 compared to the previous year. However, this should be understood in light of the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022, when the number of new core international crime cases referred to the Agency more than tripled compared to the previous year. Therefore, considering both the ongoing cases from previous years and new cases, there was still an overall increase of 10% in the number of core international crime cases handled by Eurojust in 2023 compared to 2022. Moreover, comparing 2023 to 2021, before the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the number of new cases related to core international crimes has more than doubled, showing significant growth in this area.