10-16-2026 
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TL;DR: Eight countries (Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino, and the U.K.), plus the EU and its 27 member states, signed a new Council of Europe protocol to the Warsaw Convention. It lets authorities freeze, seize, and confiscate criminal assets, including digital currency, across borders, in some cases without a conviction.
Key Takeaways:
- The Council of Europe opened a new additional protocol to the 2005 Warsaw Convention for signature on October 14, to strengthen confiscation of criminal assets, including crypto-assets.
- Eight Council of Europe member states, the EU, and its 27 member states have signed so far.
- The protocol allows courts to confiscate property linked to wider criminal conduct without a criminal conviction, subject to safeguards and national implementation.
- Authorities may freeze or seize assets urgently without prior notice, and recovery offices must respond to cooperation requests within set deadlines, including three days in urgent cases.
- Confiscated assets are, as a priority, returned to victims or legitimate owners, and sums above €10,000 ($11,126) are, as a rule, shared equally between the countries involved.
- CARF and DAC8 target tax evasion through digital currency data reporting, while the protocol strengthens the legal tools to trace, freeze, seize, and confiscate criminal proceeds.
Eight countries and the European Union have signed a new treaty aimed at strengthening authorities’ capacity to confiscate assets, including digital currencies, obtained through criminal conduct.
The treaty was introduced by the Council of Europe, an intergovernmental organization of European nations, separate from the EU, founded after the Second World War to foster human rights, democracy, and the rule of law across the continent.
On October 14, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino, and the United Kingdom became the first of the 46 Council of Europe member states to sign the treaty, followed by the EU and its 27 member states.
The new treaty was designed to enhance and strengthen the “Warsaw Convention”—adopted in 2005 to provide an international framework for combating money laundering and terrorist financing—in response to increasingly sophisticated, transnational, and technologically advanced criminal networks, often facilitated by digital assets.
“Criminal money sustains organized crime. It also buys what should never be for sale: our democracies. Taking that money away is democratic security,” Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Alain Berset, said. “No state can recover criminal assets across borders on its own. With this protocol, none will have to.”
The newly signed “additional protocol” to the Warsaw Convention was initially agreed back in May 2026 and opened for signatures on Wednesday to coincide with the “2026 Octopus conference” on cybercrime, held in Strasbourg, October 14-16.
According to a Council of Europe press release, the treaty introduces major new tools to “follow the money,” including, under specific circumstances, allowing courts to confiscate property linked to wider criminal conduct without a criminal conviction, while assets held by third parties can also be targeted—although these provisions may depend on applicable safeguards and how each nation chooses to implement them.
The Council also clarified that confiscated assets will be returned “as a priority” to victims or their legitimate owners, while confiscated sums above €10,000 ($11,126) will, as a rule, be shared equally between the countries involved, whom it encouraged to use the confiscated assets for “social or public benefit turning the proceeds of crime into a benefit for communities.”
The Warsaw Convention currently has 39 states signed up and five additional signatories that have not yet ratified it, including the European Union, with a “Conference of the Parties” monitoring the implementation of the convention and a new protocol.
“Authorities will be able to freeze or seize assets urgently, where appropriate, without prior notice, before they can be moved or concealed,” the Council said. “The protocol also requires states to establish offices to trace and manage criminal assets. It strengthens the role of financial intelligence units and improves authorities’ access to financial and virtual-asset data.”
The various nations that crafted and signed up to the updated treaty hope it will provide the tools and mechanisms to make cross-border asset recovery “faster and fairer,” in part by strengthening international cooperation through broader information-sharing, joint investigations, and direct cooperation between asset-recovery and asset-management offices, which will be required to respond to requests within set deadlines, including within three days in urgent cases.
International efforts: CARF and DAC8
The Council of Europe’s new asset-recovery protocol forms part of a wider international effort to address issues posed by increasingly sophisticated financial crime, not least the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD’s) Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), which seeks to improve tax transparency by enabling the automatic exchange of information on crypto-asset transactions between participating jurisdictions.
Introduced in 2023, CARF establishes a framework for collecting and exchanging tax-relevant information reported by crypto-asset service providers (CASPs). As of September 2026, 77 participating jurisdictions have committed to implementing the framework on different timelines, with initial exchanges scheduled from 2027 onwards.
Within the EU, Directive (EU) 2023/2226, commonly known as DAC8, extends administrative cooperation between tax authorities to digital assets, with member states required to apply its provisions from January 1, 2026, and reporting and information exchange taking place under the directive’s annual reporting timetable.
Although CARF and DAC8 support the detection of tax evasion through improved access to financial information, they serve a different purpose from the Council of Europe’s new asset-recovery protocol, which focuses on strengthening the legal and institutional mechanisms used to trace, freeze, seize, and confiscate criminal proceeds, including crypto-assets.
From information-sharing to enforcement
These various initiatives underscore that, in the international fight against financial crime, identifying suspicious assets is only part of the challenge. Authorities must also be able to act on that information, preserve assets before they disappear, and ultimately recover them across jurisdictions.
This distinction is particularly relevant to crypto-assets, which can be transferred across borders rapidly and held through multiple wallets, intermediaries, or jurisdictions, which is why the sector has been in the crosshairs of international anti-money laundering efforts for some time.
Better reporting under CARF and DAC8 could help authorities identify assets or transactions that warrant scrutiny, while the Council of Europe’s protocol is intended to strengthen the legal mechanisms available to trace, freeze, and confiscate criminal proceeds.
However, the effectiveness of these measures will depend on more than the rules themselves. Governments will actually need to implement the protocol, equip specialist agencies to manage increasingly complex asset investigations, and cooperate effectively with foreign counterparts.
This effort is already underway in some jurisdictions, but differences in national laws and enforcement capacity could still complicate cross-border recovery, even where information is available.
The Council of Europe protocol’s emphasis on returning confiscated assets to victims and legitimate owners is also not a straightforward matter, as crypto asset recovery will require appropriate safeguards and judicial oversight to protect property rights and due process, and may also require cooperation from digital asset firms—not unheard of.
In other words, the new treaty’s success may be measured not by its number of signatories, but by whether authorities can turn cross-border intelligence into timely, lawful, and effective recoveries.
FAQs:
What is the Council of Europe’s new crypto asset recovery treaty?
It is an additional protocol to the 2005 Warsaw Convention that strengthens authorities’ ability to trace, freeze, seize, and confiscate criminal assets, including digital assets, across borders. It was agreed in May 2026 and opened for signature on October 14.
Who has signed the Council of Europe crypto asset recovery treaty?
Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino, and the United Kingdom signed first, followed by the European Union and its 27 member states. They are the first signatories among the Council of Europe’s 46 member states.
Can crypto be confiscated without a criminal conviction?
Yes, under specific circumstances. The treaty allows courts to confiscate property linked to broader criminal conduct without a conviction and to target assets held by third parties, though these provisions depend on safeguards and on each country’s implementation.
How fast can authorities freeze crypto assets under the new treaty?
Authorities can freeze or seize assets urgently, where appropriate, without prior notice. Asset-recovery and asset-management offices must respond to cooperation requests within set deadlines, including three days in urgent cases, to prevent assets from being moved or concealed.
Who gets confiscated crypto under the treaty?
Confiscated assets are returned to victims or legitimate owners as a priority. Sums above €10,000 are, as a rule, shared equally between the countries involved, which are encouraged to use them for social or public benefit in communities.
What is the difference between the treaty and CARF or DAC8?
CARF and DAC8 improve tax transparency by enabling authorities to exchange digital currency transaction data to detect tax evasion. The Council of Europe protocol instead strengthens the legal and institutional tools for tracing, freezing, seizing, and confiscating criminal proceeds.
Will the treaty be enough to recover digital currency across borders?
Not on its own. Success depends on governments implementing the protocol, equipping specialist agencies, and cooperating with foreign counterparts. Differences in national laws and enforcement capacity could still complicate recoveries, and safeguards for property rights and due process remain essential.
Watch: Understanding MiCA with Juan Ignacio Ibañez, MiCA Crypto Alliance’s Executive Director
