JP Willemse joined the Basel Institute in August 2019 as a Senior Specialist, Financial Investigations. He is currently deployed to a programme of the International Centre for Asset Recovery in Zambia, following several years based in Malawi. 

JP has been a financial investigator since 1996. He served in the South African Police Service for 13 years and worked as a detective in the Organised Crime Investigation Unit, with a focus on financial investigations relating to major organised crime syndicates.

In 1999 he joined a forensic accounting firm as a forensic investigator, where he assisted the South African Asset Forfeiture Unit in a financial investigation that resulted in one of the largest seizure orders the unit had ever obtained that year. JP subsequently joined the Asset Forfeiture Unit and, in 2007, was appointed Head of Investigations.

Whilst at the Asset Forfeiture Unit, JP was instrumental in setting up the Asset Recovery Inter-Agency of Southern Africa (ARINSA) in 2009. He has been an active member of the ARINSA Secretariat as well as its Steering Group.

JP has a B-Tech degree in Policing from the University of South Africa, as well as a National Diploma in Policing and a Diploma in Forensic Auditing and Criminal Justice from the University of Johannesburg.