Some 58,000 cigars and 147 luxury watches auctioned for almost €2 million were among the activities of Luxembourg’s asset recovery office in 2024.
The Asset Management Office (Bureau de gestion des avoirs, BGA), created in 2022 under the Ministry of Justice to handle assets seized during criminal investigations, increased the value of assets under its management from €1 billion in 2023 to more than €1.4 billion at the end of December 2024, according to its latest activity report published on Thursday.
Asset recovery office holding over €1 billion in seized riches
The number of ongoing cases handled by the office more than doubled from 762 to 1,653. As of 31 December 2024, the BGA was managing 6,718 items, mainly credit balances (45.6%) and securities accounts (38.7%), but also real estate, vehicles, cash and virtual assets.
The agency, which operates as a separately managed state service with 13 staff, generated €8.7 million in revenue last year, €6.1 million of which was transferred to the state treasury and €2.6 million to Luxembourg’s Fund to Combat Certain Forms of Crime. Its total operating and staff costs amounted to around €1.4 million.
Among its main disposals were 27 lots of seized goods worth close to €2 million. These included 58,019 cigars that sold for €485,000. It also included 147 collector’s watches.
Nearly 200 timepieces were seized from Luxembourg businessman Flavio Becca as part of a money laundering conviction. The watches went up for auction in June 2024 at Casino 2000 in Mondorf-les-Bains for €1.8 million, although the BGA’s annual report did not specify the origin of the 147 watches it sold.
Flavio Becca’s luxury watches draw crowd at auction
The BGA helped execute 838 court rulings covering assets worth €242 million, and negotiated nine asset-sharing agreements with Belgium, France and the Netherlands totalling €1.9 million.
Judicial authorities seized assets worth €300 million in 2024 and issued confiscation decisions worth €238 million, the activity report said.
The office also disposed of 164 tonnes of unsellable or hazardous goods, including expired medicines and fireworks, which it said posed a risk to people and the environment.
Set up in 2022, the BGA works alongside the Bureau de recouvrement des avoirs (BRA), which helps prosecutors identify and trace assets before and after convictions. The two bodies form part of Luxembourg’s system to recover proceeds of crime and strengthen its anti-money-laundering framework.
