Financial data is the foundation of any investigation into corruption and related financial crimes – but a lot of data is not available in a format that is easy to collect and analyse.

Investigators often waste many hours combining data from different formats, manually re-typing financial data contained in images or poor scans, or copy-pasting information from the internet. Not only is this inefficient and frustrating: it may lead to errors that will throw the investigation or prosecution off course.

A new guide to non-conviction based forfeiture published by GAFILAT, the Latin American body of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) sets out good practices for this powerful but under-used form of asset recovery legislation. It also emphasises the need for laws to align with both domestic constitutions and international human rights standards.

A guest blog by Ryan Carter, a law student at Arizona State University who is undertaking a legal research internship at the Basel Institute on Governance.

Politics matters for the success of anti-corruption and asset recovery efforts. That is the starting point of our latest Working Paper, based on a two-year research project that combined the expertise and hands-on experience of our Prevention, Research and Innovation (PRI) team and our International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR).

The report discusses the political and governance factors that affect the performance of the justice system in relation to anti-corruption and asset recovery.