Germany will overhaul its core federal security agencies and deploy artificial intelligence as part of a crackdown on organized crime, related money laundering, and other financial crimes, Reuters reported Wednesday. 

The country’s ministries of finance, interior affairs, and justice said the initiative is intended to modernize authorities, including Germany’s customs service and its federal crime police office, known as the BKA. The reforms will augment the legal and technical capacity of the agencies and bolster the state’s ability to target illicit financial flows, Reuters said. 

The overhaul will also expedite the confiscation of criminal assets, including cash, luxury automobiles, and real estate, according to the news agency. The BKA and customs are expected to coordinate more closely via shared data-analysis centers and joint investigative teams tasked with uncovering money-laundering and drug-trafficking networks. 

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the BKA would receive more staff, greater powers, and stronger enforcement authority, according to the report. The proposal would also allow customs and the BKA to use AI tools to identify perpetrators and process large volumes of information, Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said in a statement.

“We are ensuring that the investigating authorities hit the perpetrators where it hurts most: their money,” Klingbeil said in the report. 

Read more at Reuters