Samenvatting

Dutch policy makers, as elsewhere, have a strong belief in the effectiveness of asset recovery legislation. There are high expectations concerning the amounts of crime money to be collected, and the collection thereof would enable theauthorities to tackle serious, organized crime and fill the treasury. However, the results of the authors’ empirical research into the actual execution of ‘recovery orders’ show a different image. The majority of asset recovery cases concerns cases with low payment obligations (under € 5,000), indicating that mainly ‘smaller fishes’ are targeted. In general, the collection of crime money proves to be a difficult endeavour. Large amounts are not collected and there are long execution times. Policy makers who publicly announce high expectations, and who budget the expected incomes from asset recovery, do not practice evidence-based policy making and give leeway to false hopes which then require new (legislative) measures.