The court rules to release frozen funds and terminate criminal proceedings against COBALT’s clients for confiscation of property

Two court instances have ruled in favour of COBALT’s clients whose funds were seized by the Economical Police on suspicion of a criminal origin. Throughout the litigation, COBALT secured favourable ruling for the clients that resulted in release of the frozen funds and dismissal of the criminal proceedings, which had been initiated due to suspicions regarding the criminal origin of more than EUR 600,000 with a total of more than EUR 1.6 million successfully released and returned to several individuals in the joint case.

The Criminal Division of Riga Regional Court agreed with the argumentation of COBALT and rejected the position of investigation and prosecution, concluding that the entirety of evidence presented in the case does not give grounds to believe that the seized property might be of criminal origin. On 14 April 2025 Riga Regional Court delivered a ruling upholding the Economic Court’s decision of 8 November 2024, by which the first instance court terminated criminal proceedings for confiscation of allegedly criminally acquired property. The decision of the appeals court is now final.

In legal proceedings concerning the confiscation of proceeds of crime, the court emphasized that only funds demonstrably linked to criminal activity can be subject to confiscation. Funds lacking clear identification or with an uncertain origin are excluded from such measures. The legal principle necessitates a probable link between the property and a criminal offense for confiscation to be warranted.

Established case law acknowledges that the criminal origin of funds can be substantiated through circumstantial evidence derived from the specific facts of a case, even in instances where the underlying criminal offense remains unidentified. Consequently, it falls within the court’s purview to evaluate the entirety of the presented evidence to determine whether a probable criminal origin of the seized property has been sufficiently established. In this case, having assessed the investigator’s assumptions in conjunction with the evidence in the case, the court has found that it was not possible to confiscate the funds solely on the basis of presumptions.

Representation of the clients was ensured by COBALT Managing Partner Lauris Liepa and Senior Associate Gabriela Šantare.