Editorial

Dear Reader

Organised crime is highly visible – and yet it is elusive, and not just to law enforcement agencies. It is like the proverbial iceberg: individual offences, arrests and seizures are the part that can be seen protruding above the water. However, the bulk of it remains below the surface: networks, money flows and structures that are hidden from direct and public view.

According to Europol, there are more than 800 criminal networks active across Europe, many of which also operate in Switzerland. These include Italian mafia groups, Albanian organised crime groups, Nigerian confraternities, Turkish criminal networks, and the Netherlands-based Mocro Maffia. Each of these specialises in specific areas of crime, such as drug trafficking, people trafficking or illegal gambling. However, they also work together as partners in crime, strengthening each other and using shared infrastructure. They all share one goal: financial gain. This is where Switzerland comes into play: as an economically strong and politically stable location at the heart of Europe, it is attractive to criminals as a transit country, a hub and a target market. In a sense, Switzerland has become a haven specifically targeted by criminal networks to generate profit. And they stop at nothing to achieve this, posing a risk to our economy, the rule of law and, ultimately, our democracy.

Some selected cases from 2025 offer a glimpse beneath the surface. The Federal Office of Police (fedpol) joined forces with partner authorities in Canada and 17 other countries to dismantle a network responsible for countless cyberattacks. Thanks to a tip-off from the Money Laundering Reporting Office Switzerland (MROS), fedpol and its foreign partners uncovered one of Europe’s largest money laundering cases.

We are also working with cantonal police and our French counterparts to combat the sharp rise in luxury car thefts, which are being carried out by young people recruited via social media. To tackle this phenomenon in a coordinated manner across cantonal and national borders, we will set up a nationwide task force led by fedpol in early April 2026.

What does this mean for our efforts to deal with the ‘iceberg’? We don’t just want to chip away at the tip of the iceberg. We want to heat up the water so that the whole iceberg melts. We will achieve this by taking a society-wide approach and creating an environment in which criminal networks cannot flourish. This is precisely the aim of the National Strategy to Combat Organised Crime, which was developed jointly by the federal government and the cantons in 2025. It pursues three objectives: identifying, preventing and combating organised crime.

“We are taking a society-wide approach and creating an environment in which criminal networks cannot flourish.”

In 2026, we will focus on developing a national action plan (NAP). Working with our national partners, we will implement concrete measures to enhance information sharing, raise awareness among non-police entities such as land registers and migration offices, and intensify our cooperation with foreign police authorities. We also plan to submit a package of legislative amendments for consultation by the end of the 2027, giving Swiss law enforcement agencies access to even more effective tools for tackling organised crime.

II am confident that we are on the right track. And I am proud of and grateful for all we have achieved with our partner authorities over the past year. We combated serious crime and protected our judicial officials and federal institutions. We maintained security at major events, continued developing the biometric identity card, and analysed and took action to combat terrorism and cybercrime. We also intensified our police cooperation within Switzerland and abroad. We worked as investigators, financial analysts, lawyers, police security officers, experts in explosives and weapons, police attachés and much more.

And now I hope you enjoy reading this report!