Customs can take stronger action against financial crime

The Federal Government intends to do everything in its power to combat organised crime - such as financial crime, money laundering, drug trafficking, and gang and clan structures - more effectively and Customs plays an important role in this regard. In order to strengthen it and grant it further powers, the Federal Cabinet has now passed the Customs and Financial Justice Act.

Federal Minister of Finance Lars Klingbeil on this decision: "Through this act, we are sending a clear message to criminals: we're stepping up the pressure! At the same time, we are easing the burden on law-abiding citizens and businesses. This is an important step towards ensuring justice in our country."

New powers for Customs

Under the new package of legislation, Customs will be granted new powers to enable it to tackle financial crime and money laundering more effectively. Such powers include:

• In future, Customs will be able to seize assets more easily where there are reasonable grounds to doubt their lawful origin ("suspicious wealth order"). This will make it possible to tackle asset concealment in a targeted manner.
• It will also be able to exercise greater control over cross-border digital payment channels and to safeguard cryptoassets.
• To combat international money laundering, the existing Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) within Customs is being strengthened. Data sharing between the Federal Government and the federal states is also to be expanded.
• In addition, Customs will be given the legal basis for the use of modern technologies, such as artificial intelligence, for example to cross-check biometric data or to deploy drones.
• To ensure the effective enforcement of sanctions, the powers of the Central Customs Authority relating to identity verification, searches and data analysis are being extended.

Customs now carries out significantly more tasks than it used to. In addition to standard checks on goods and collecting customs duties, it also deals, for example, with undeclared work, organised crime, money laundering and the enforcement of sanctions.

New structures for greater effectiveness

Another key focus of the act is to reorganise and improve the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies such as Customs. The aim is to consolidate different tasks in a more targeted manner and manage them more effectively. This will make Customs as a whole more effective and efficient in the fight against financial crime.

To achieve this, it is important to collate information more quickly overall. Consequently, the Central Customs Authority is to be split into two specialist divisions in future: "Customs and Taxation" and "Security and Enforcement". In addition, the Customs Criminal Investigation Office and the Central Office for the Enforcement of Sanctions will be integrated into the Central Customs Authority. In order to streamline decision-making processes, speed up the exchange of information and eliminate the duplication of structures, the existing main customs offices and customs investigation offices are to be reorganised into customs authorities at regional level.

Action plan on organised crime

With the Customs and Financial Justice Act, the Federal Government is implementing key elements of its action plan to combat organised crime . This was drawn up jointly by the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Ministry of Justice, and adopted in February 2026. In addition to strengthening and reorganising Customs, topics from the action plan are also to be addressed, such as the establishment of centres of excellence and the safeguarding of assets. Taken together, these measures are intended to help combat organised crime more effectively - in order to safeguard Germany's internal security and its position as a centre of economic and financial activity.