Mozambican prosecutors, judges and other anti-corruption practitioners came together from 4–8 November 2019 for a deep dive into the real-life issues of conducting financial investigations and recovering stolen assets.

The training team of the Basel Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) took the 19 participants through an intensive five-day workshop on Financial Investigations and Asset Recovery, ICAR’s flagship training programme.

Mozambique’s Attorney General’s Office has recently set up a dedicated office for asset recovery, recognising the importance of asset recovery in deterring corruption as well as recovering funds stolen from the Mozambican state. Members of the new office attended the training.

As usual, the workshop was hands-on and interactive, based around a complex simulated investigation and the exchange of experiences with other practitioners. Through this, for example, judges could better appreciate the challenges faced in the investigation and prosecution of corruption and money laundering cases.

The participants debated tricky issues such as the use of circumstantial evidence to prove bribery or money laundering – considering that direct evidence in such cases is rare – and came away with greater confidence to handle complex financial crime cases in the future.

The “eye-opening” event (in the words of one participant) was the second in a series of ICAR training programmes following a successful initial workshop in August 2019.