The public prosecution department was able to seize €402m in suspected criminal earnings last year but most of this – €358m – came from an out of court settlement with Russian telecom firm Vimpelcom.

In 2015, the department sequestered €143m and in 2014 €136m.

Earlier this month VU university researcher Edwin Kruisbergen said the public prosecution department only succeeds in confiscating 20% of the assets officials try to take from convicted criminals.

Kruisbergen studied 102 major cases between 1995 and 2015 in which the authorities set out to seize as much of the criminal assets as possible. In total, officials put in claims for €62m of which €27.5m was ruled in court to be justified.

Of that, just €11.3m has been handed over by last year.