Rita Simões joined the Basel Institute on Governance in November 2024 as a Senior Specialist, Asset Recovery focusing on policy.

Rita has over 20 years of experience as a public prosecutor, with a particular focus on financial crime, asset recovery and international cooperation. She has also gained considerable expertise as a speaker and trainer on these topics.

Before joining the Basel Institute, Rita served as Assistant to the National Member for Portugal at Eurojust, where she worked on international cooperation cases involving both European Union Member States and third countries. She was actively involved in several Eurojust working groups, with a particular emphasis on asset recovery, money laundering, corruption and conflicts of jurisdiction.

Rita began her career with a multidisciplinary approach, handling civil, criminal and family cases before specialising in criminal investigations. She led numerous complex investigations into fraud and tax fraud at the Lisbon Department for Criminal Investigation and Prosecution (2007–2012).

Between 2012 and 2020, Rita served at the Central Department for Criminal Investigation and Prosecution (DCIAP), a division of Portugal’s Public Prosecution Service responsible for investigating highly complex and organised crime. During her time at DCIAP, she was involved in large-scale economic and financial crime investigations, as well as anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML-CTF).

Rita has published three papers on asset recovery and international cooperation.

She holds a law degree from the University of Coimbra.