You asked a question about convictions. I think that can be explained in large part by the fact that you have to wait for the right time. In 2012, the agency decided to focus on more delicate cases. I'm not talking about cases involving offshore activities, but rather more serious cases. In the meantime, the average penalty on conviction increased from $130,000 to $1.6 million. Penalties on conviction last year were almost 10 times more than previously.
More recently, we decided to put the emphasis on overseas activities, and we're now focusing on 50 open cases. These aren't old cases. We're at the search warrant stage, for example. We've issued news releases to announce that, in several of those cases, and even in cases related to the Panama Papers, we're already at the search stage. However, we're not currently talking about convictions for overseas activities because it's not yet time for that. These are cases that take five, six or seven years to complete.
So, as regards the status of those cases, we're more likely talking about 50 ongoing cases. They represent nearly one third of our current volume, which wasn't previously the case. Consequently, we have 50 mature cases currently under investigation.