Last year, the District Prosecutor's Office for Economic Crime and Corruption handled an increasing number of sanctions-related offenses. Regardless of the field, however, criminal schemes are becoming more complex and the volume of case materials continues to grow, leading district prosecutor Sirle Melk said.

To prevent the workload from becoming unmanageable, swift decisions are needed on which tools the public sector is permitted to use for processing large volumes of data, she noted.

"There is an urgent need for tools with which to work through these materials. There has been a very strong surge in AI — we are already seeing in our work extremely lengthy criminal complaints generated by artificial intelligence to which we must respond, yet we do not have access to comparable tools ourselves. This already puts us at a disadvantage," Melk said.

Estonia must very quickly adopt a clear position on how artificial intelligence tools should be approached in the public sector and what kinds of debates are needed: to what extent their use should be allowed, as well as to address increasingly pressing data protection issues, she added.

"I believe no one doubts that without this, the fight against crime will not be effective in the future because we will be at a significant disadvantage — the other side operates without any rules. We must be prepared for AI-generated falsified evidence and documents entering proceedings and we need the capability and skills to detect them and recognize when we are being misled," Melk said.

"The volume of a complaint can reach thousands of pages and by law we have only ten days to review a criminal complaint. So we are under intense time pressure and at present we lack tools comparable to those available to the complainant — even to generate summaries or highlight the most important points from the massive amount of information submitted to us," Melk said.

Sanctions crime a quarter of total case load

The volume of proceedings has been significantly increased by so-called sanctions offenses, meaning dealings with individuals and companies that transport prohibited goods — those subject to sanctions — across the eastern border. A violation becomes a criminal offense if the value of the goods exceeds €10,000 or if it is committed repeatedly or as part of a group.

Sanctions-related crimes account for roughly a quarter of all cases handled by the District Prosecutor's Office for Economic Crime and Corruption crimes. For example, there are currently 436 cases under investigation, more than one hundred of which involve sanctions offenses. No additional staff have been hired to handle this workload.

"The range of items discovered and seized at the border is very diverse, from used clothing and cosmetics to car spare parts. There are also many attempts to transport luxury goods — branded clothing, jewelry, expensive wines and other high-end alcohol. And cash, of course. The European Union has continuously expanded the list of sanctioned goods to the point where it is now difficult to find items that are not subject to sanctions," Melk said.

The district prosecutor's office has also achieved two major successes: in one case, the court confiscated a BMW valued at more than €60,000; in another, a yacht that was being taken to Russia was seized and sold.

Eesti Energia proceedings ongoing

Large-scale proceedings also involve, for example, state-owned companies. In recent years, there have been quite a few such cases: the District Prosecutor's Office for Economic Crime and Corruption has dealt with the Nordica case and a criminal investigation involving Eesti Energia is currently ongoing.

"This is yet another case involving a very large volume of data. Under scrutiny are the invoices submitted for maintenance work at the Auvere Power Plant. There is suspicion that the contractor responsible for the maintenance work unjustifiably inflated those invoices — in other words, fraud may have been committed, causing damage to (Eesti Energia subsidiary) Enefit Power. Since the work was carried out over several years, during which a large number of invoices were submitted, those invoices contain a vast number of items sold to Enefit Power in the course of maintaining the power plant. Verifying all of these is extremely resource-intensive work and we are about halfway through," Melk said.

No one has been named a suspect and it is not yet certain whether the case will reach that stage at all.

That was also the outcome in the Nordica case where criminal proceedings were terminated because no crime was identified and no individual was named a suspect. The investigation examined circumstances related to potential financial damage to the state-owned airline.

"We did not find that members of the supervisory board or management board had abused their trust in any way or committed other violations that would be directly causally linked to the damage incurred. Taking business risks is entirely normal in business. Business itself is one large risk and those risks are taken knowingly and deliberately; sometimes they materialize. And this time they did. At the same time, no criminal liability can be attributed to any of the individuals involved on the grounds that they acted maliciously and thereby caused Nordica's bankruptcy," Melk said.

Audits of state-owned companies are consistently followed with interest at the district prosecutor's office, he added.

A change in court practice may lead to evidence being dismissed

One of the major court cases recently concluded was the case involving Priit Humal and Parvel Pruunsild. The Prosecutor's Office decided not to appeal the acquittal to the Supreme Court.

It was one of those cases where it emerged in court that access to personal correspondence had, in part, not been obtained lawfully and therefore could not be considered admissible evidence.

"There can be many different reasons why evidence is sometimes, so to speak, excluded during court proceedings. At the moment, the use of communications data is under significant question. For a long time, this has been an area that has not been clearly regulated by law and somewhat contradictory court rulings have been issued. So in reality, the Prosecutor's Office lacks clear legal certainty as to the extent to which such evidence may be used," Melk said.

"In the Humal–Pruunsild case, evidence obtained from email accounts was particularly important and here too court practice has changed over time regarding which types of electronically obtained evidence are admissible," she added.

Over time, this may also affect lengthy court proceedings — the rules can change during the course of a single case and influence its outcome.

However, such rules are meant to be shaped by court practice rather than prescribed in advance by law, Melk noted. "This is one of the key sources of criminal law and criminal procedure — not everything can or should be regulated at the legislative level," he said.

Restrictions on the use of people's data, including recordings from public cameras, are already affecting the work of the Prosecutor's Office.

"This court practice is ultimately a matter of public debate: where do we draw the line? It is certainly not simple, as different interests must be weighed. But that does not mean we can avoid dealing with it because it is already having a critical impact on our ability to solve serious crimes. Can we use footage from cameras to identify individuals? Can we obtain data from telecommunications companies and under what conditions? Law enforcement authorities are not opposed to oversight — it must indeed be controlled and purposeful. But we need clear rules within which to operate and at present those clear rules are lacking," Melk said.

In both the Humal–Pruunsild case and the case involving former minister Kalle Laanet and former police chiefs, the accused suggested that the investigations were, in one way or another, acts of retaliation.

Melk said that making such claims is a fairly typical part of defense strategy and should not be taken to mean that this is how the Prosecutor's Office actually operates.

"We must then further explain that the Prosecutor's Office does not, in any way or to any extent, engage in politically motivated retaliation. If one wishes to draw parallels with political parties, then over time the Prosecutor's Office has investigated, I would say, all parties. I do not see any favoritism or political bias in our work that would give grounds for such speculation. I can confirm that we act solely on the basis of the law and the evidence collected. For us, it makes absolutely no difference which party a politician belongs to or who the person is. All individuals are equal before the law and we treat them accordingly," he said.

Strange trends in the Supreme Court

The current composition of the Riigikogu stands out, among other things, for the fact that parliamentary immunity has so far been lifted from three members — Kert Kingo, Kalle Grünthal and Kalle Laanet — and recently the chancellor of justice also gave consent to lift immunity from Tõnis Mölder. This brings the total to four MPs; in addition, criminal proceedings are currently underway against another member, Lauri Läänemets.

Melk said she cannot recall anything similar happening during previous parliamentary terms and it is difficult to offer a clear explanation.

"When someone is elected to the Riigikogu and granted certain official privileges to carry out their duties, the boundary between public and private interest is often not fully recognized or becomes blurred and resources intended for official duties tend to be used for personal purposes," Melk noted.

Prosecution keeping a close eye on EU funds use in Ida-Viru County

Law enforcement authorities are currently focusing attention on Ida-Viru County where a large amount of funding from the European Union's Just Transition Fund has already arrived and more is on the way — specifically €345 million.

"Large-scale investments related to the green transition are planned there and our experience shows that where there is a lot of money, there is also a temptation to misuse it. So this area is definitely a focus for us and we are trying to understand whether and where these funds may be misused," Melk said.

Together with the Financial Supervision Authority, authorities are also examining illegal lending practices.

"It is no secret that private individuals are extensively issuing loans on Facebook and other social media platforms. This is something we definitely want to bring more into focus because lending is in fact a highly regulated activity. Providing credit requires an operating license from the Financial Supervision Authority and is subject to specific and very strict rules," Melk said.

"This is certainly an area that requires attention because people can find themselves in difficult situations, with a relatively high risk of falling into the hands of loan sharks. Several individuals have already approached law enforcement authorities with such problems," he added.

On the corruption side, one area of concern is the medical sector where competition is limited.

"Based on our investigations so far, we have seen that competition in procurement processes there is quite low and tenders are sometimes structured or directed in such a way that only a single, preferred bidder can meet the requirements. Our task is to ensure that these procurements are transparent and that competition is real rather than merely superficial," Melk noted.

Money laundering — the movement of criminal funds through Estonia — also remains an issue.

"A considerable amount of criminal money passes through Estonia and this (money laundering) is handled by individuals and companies that provide such services. So our scope of work is very broad and we plan to allocate significant resources to this area," Melk said.

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