Asset recovery

Malawi hosts first regional workshop on managing seized assets

Crime must not pay, but what we recover must also be worth recovering. With these words, Charles Mhango, Malawi's Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, opened the first Regional Asset Management Workshop in Salima, Malawi, on 29 September 2026. Over two days, nearly 40 prosecutors, law enforcement representatives and asset management officers from Ghana, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia worked with international experts on a practical question. How do you stop seized assets losing value while a criminal case makes its way through the courts? The workshop was organised by the Basel Institute's International Centre for Asset Recovery ICAR and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions of Malawi, led by Fostino Yankho Maele. Ben Nicholson, British Deputy High Commissioner and Development Director, and representatives of the Royal Norwegian Embassy also took part. Warm thanks to ICAR’s donors, in particular the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office FCDO and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation Norad , for funding this valuable meeting of minds. A shared challenge Criminal cases can take years. In that time, seized cars rust, buildings fall into disrepair and businesses collapse. When an asset loses its value, everyone loses. The state recovers less if the suspect is convicted, and the owner gets back less if they are acquitted. Practitioners increasingly understand that asset management is an essential part of asset recovery. The difficulty lies in the detail. - Resources are often limited, and laws do not always allow assets to be managed or sold before a case ends. - Essential good practices such as pre-seizure planning are still new in many places. - Complex assets such as companies, mines or petrol stations need specialist skills that prosecutors and police do not typically have. These problems are by no means unique to Africa. Elizabeth Andersen, Executive Director of the Basel Institute, reminded participants that practitioners everywhere face them. A representative of Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau reinforced the point with the country’s own experience of managing seized real estate. Learning from experience Participants were eager to share what had worked for them and what had not. The camaraderie among practitioners was evident, which kept the discussions dynamic and encouraged peer learning. Complex, income-generating assets came up again and again. One jurisdiction described managing a mine that was already struggling financially even before the price of its commodity fell sharply. Other delegations spoke about their efforts to ensure that tenants of seized properties paid rent to the state instead of to suspects. There were positive experiences too. In one jurisdiction, seized assets put up for auction sold for more than their initial asking prices. The countries represented at the workshop are now seeking to move towards specialised models and streamlined procedures for managing seized assets. No single model The clearest message from the two days was that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to asset management. A house, a fleet of tankers, a bank account and a crypto wallet each need different handling. What works in one legal system may not work in another. That gives African jurisdictions an opportunity. They can learn from shared experiences in the region and beyond, and build models and processes that suit their own needs and circumstances. Next steps The discussions will inform broad principles that participating jurisdictions can adapt to their own systems. A specialised focus group on managing seized cryptoassets is also launching under the Basel Institute’s Africa Crypto & Asset Recovery Network. Through our ICAR field experts in Africa and our international partners, we look forward to supporting the region’s asset management and recovery professionals as they develop the policies, laws and practices needed to manage criminal assets and recover maximum value for victims and the state. Learn more - Read the Malawi Ministry of Justice press release on the workshop. - See Rita Simões’ Quick Guide to Managing Seized and Confiscated Assets.

Moldova gains five certified trainers in financial investigations and asset recovery

Congratulations to the five Moldovan practitioners who are now certified to conduct training in financial investigations and asset recovery using the case-based training methodology of the Basel Institute's International Centre for Asset Recovery ICAR . They received their trainer certificates at the end of a 10-month Train-the-Trainer programme run by ICAR with Moldova's National Institute of Justice NIJ . The final workshop took place in Chisinau on 14–18 September 2026. Over five workshops since December 2025, the programme also trained 106 judges, prosecutors, investigators and other practitioners. The programme responded to a request from Moldova's President, Maia Sandu, for support in building skills across the country's asset recovery chain, from financial investigation to international cooperation and confiscation. It forms part of the CRESTA asset recovery assistance project, which ICAR implements with financial support from the Swiss Cooperation Office in Moldova. In addition to training, this includes hands-on support with live cases and legislative reform. We congratulate the new trainers and all participants, and thank the NIJ and other government partners for the fruitful collaboration. The new trainers The five certified trainers work at the heart of Moldova's efforts to recover criminal assets. One is a Deputy Chief Prosecutor at the Anti-Corruption Prosecution Office. Two lead or work in criminal investigation teams at the State Fiscal Service's anti-fraud directorate. The other two are at the Criminal Assets Recovery Agency. One of them, Pavel Calpajiu, heads the Criminal Assets Recovery Agency's department for valuing and managing seized assets. During the programme he gave a session on parallel financial investigations, which means following the money from the very start of a case. This approach was emphasised throughout the whole training. The five – three women, two men – are now ready to train their colleagues on their own. Why train trainers? Training local trainers means the skills remain in Moldova long after the programme ends. With the NIJ's support, the new trainers can keep transferring what they have learned to new groups of practitioners. People also learn better from their peers. The new trainers know Moldova's laws and institutions, and they work on the same kinds of cases as the people they teach. Their examples come from real experience. Teaching benefits the trainers too. Practitioners who train others often try out new approaches in their own cases and bring those lessons back into the classroom. Over time, this helps investigators and prosecutors across the country find more effective ways to trace and recover criminal assets. Learning by doing ICAR's methodology is built around a realistic case that participants investigate in small groups, from the first suspicion to the recovery of assets. One participant said: The investigation we conducted was extremely interesting and instructive, providing me with a clear understanding of how a real process unfolds. Another remarked: I gained new knowledge and skills that I will apply in my prosecution and judicial trainer daily work and future practice. Another participant found that the group work was central to the course, as it: enhances teamwork and the exchange of experiences among group members from different fields, which ultimately facilitates \ learning\ . Participants came from more than 10 institutions, including the courts, prosecution offices, the Criminal Assets Recovery Agency, the National Anti-Corruption Centre, the National Integrity Authority, the State Fiscal Service, the Customs Service, the police and the Office for the Prevention and Control of Money Laundering. ICAR-led learning Our ICAR training team has expanded its training offer to meet the varied needs of practitioners everywhere. If you’re not a government agency, check out the free eLearning courses on Basel LEARN, or secure your spot on ICAR’s four-day online course on asset recovery that is open to individuals including journalists and civil society. For a deeper dive into the theory and practice of investigations and asset recovery, there’s still time to enrol on our academic programme with the University of Basel, Combating financial crime through asset recovery.

Peru and Ecuador join forces against transnational organised crime

The Attorneys General of Peru and Ecuador have signed an agreement establishing a joint investigation team to pursue a major transnational organised crime investigation spanning both countries. Signed on 29 September 2026 in Peru’s Sacred Valley, on the margins of the General Assembly of the Ibero-American Association of Public Prosecutors AIAMP , the agreement culminates a complex bilateral process supported by the Basel Institute on Governance’s International Centre for Asset Recovery ICAR . ICAR already provides technical assistance to the investigations in Peru and Ecuador and will continue that support within the joint framework. Why is a joint investigation team needed? It helps solve a simple but increasingly urgent problem. Organised criminal groups can operate across borders as integrated structures, while criminal justice systems remain largely confined within national boundaries. Those boundaries can become barriers to effective prosecution in complex transnational cases. Joint investigation teams help narrow that gap by enabling prosecutors and investigators from different jurisdictions to plan investigative steps, coordinate evidence gathering and develop a common strategy. A high-level commitment to investigate together The agreement was signed during a closed high-level session held alongside the AIAMP meeting, bringing together senior prosecutors and international cooperation officials from both countries. Peru was represented by Attorney General Tomás Gálvez, together with senior prosecutors responsible for international cooperation, organised crime and asset recovery. Ecuador was represented by Acting Attorney General Leonardo Alarcón and the head of the prosecution service’s international affairs office. ICAR’s Latin America team facilitated the session and will continue supporting implementation under its longstanding cooperation frameworks with the prosecution services of both countries. Attorney General Tomás Gálvez emphasised: The agreement is important, but it is only the starting point. What matters now is that the authorities trust each other and work together. These criminal organisations do not respect borders, and neither country can face them alone. We need close and constant cooperation. If we do not act now, violence will continue to grow, citizens will be at greater risk and the State will lose control in places where criminal groups are already trying to impose their own rules. Gálvez also thanked the Basel Institute for its longstanding support and for helping to facilitate and provide technical assistance to the establishment of the joint investigation team. Acting Attorney General Leonardo Alarcón likewise emphasised the importance of sustained institutional backing. Thanking his Peruvian counterparts for their reception, he committed the Ecuadorian prosecution service to supporting an investigation whose scale and cross-border character require close cooperation between the two institutions. Alarcón asked his international cooperation team to maintain close coordination on the case and acknowledged ICAR’s contribution to bringing the two prosecution services together around the new investigative framework. In depth: Joint investigation teams in Latin America Joint investigation teams represent a welcome development in investigative practice, particularly for complex cases that cannot be effectively addressed within the boundaries of a single jurisdiction. Putting them into practice in Latin America, however, is not always straightforward. Unlike Europe, the region has no harmonised legal framework governing their establishment and operation. Each arrangement must therefore be built around the applicable international instruments and the procedural rules of the participating countries. This requires a careful balance. Joint work must respect the powers, procedures and safeguards of each sovereign State while remaining consistent with international standards of cooperation. That balance is not always easy to achieve, but it is particularly important where the seriousness and urgency of the crimes under investigation demand a faster and more integrated response. Challenges around evidence Evidence provides a good example of trying to strike that balance in practice. A joint investigation can make its collection and exchange considerably more direct, but this must be accompanied by clear rules on documentation, chain of custody and procedural safeguards. Evidence gathered jointly must ultimately withstand scrutiny before a court and be capable of resisting challenges by the defence. Otherwise, a criminal trial intended to determine guilt and responsibility risks becoming a lengthy dispute over whether the evidence can be admitted or relied upon at all. Cross-border cooperation under review Procedural regulation of joint investigation teams remains limited in many countries in the region. In addition, the existence of an agreement to investigate jointly does not, by itself, remove the requirements that normally govern international criminal cooperation between sovereign States. Depending on the measure involved, issues such as dual criminality, specialty, judicial authorisation and other procedural safeguards may still need to be satisfied. How these principles apply will have to be assessed case-by-case as the joint investigation develops, particularly where evidence is intended for use before national courts. In Peru, experience from this and other cases has already informed a proposal, technically supported by the Basel Institute, to introduce specific provisions on joint investigation teams into the Criminal Procedure Code, making use of the Attorney General’s power to submit legislative initiatives. The aim is to provide greater legal certainty for future joint investigations while preserving the flexibility that makes the mechanism useful in practice. Asset recovery built into the joint investigation A notable feature of the agreement is that asset recovery is incorporated into the joint investigative framework from the outset. Under the agreement, Peru and Ecuador established a common framework on how to coordinate the identification, tracing, securing and eventual confiscation of assets across both jurisdictions, rather than leaving these questions to a later stage of the investigation. This gives practical effect to a principle widely recognised in organised crime investigations across the region: disrupting criminal organisations also means targeting the financial structures that sustain them. Oscar Solórzano emphasised: In the face of increasingly complex and global crime, cooperation between states is the only way to respond effectively. We need to make efficient use of all the bilateral and regional cooperation mechanisms at our disposal and overcome the traditional dichotomy between criminals operating in an organised fashion and criminal justice systems operating in silos. That is the spirit of this joint investigation team. The aim is to achieve concrete results through coordinated operations and procedures that enable us to go after criminal networks and, at the same time, dismantle the financial structures that sustain them.” In a cross-border investigation, a coordinated asset recovery strategy allows authorities to assess, as the case develops, which legal tools available in each jurisdiction offer the best prospect of tracing, securing and ultimately recovering assets. Clear rules can also help them anticipate how measures will be coordinated and how confiscated assets may eventually be disposed of or shared under the applicable legal framework. Broader relevance to asset recovery outcomes in Latin America For ICAR and the wider Basel Institute, this is particularly relevant. Our long-standing work on asset recovery and international cooperation in Latin America provides a strong basis for this more integrated form of support. It also requires closer links with partners that can help address practical challenges arising in joint investigations. The Basel Institute is currently concluding a memorandum of understanding with IberRed aimed at strengthening support for the secure exchange and transfer of information and evidence. These efforts reflect how ICAR combines operational support with applied knowledge drawn from real cases and cooperation processes. Learn more - See the Peruvian Government press release in Spanish : Ministerio Público y Fiscalía General de Ecuador conforman equipo conjunto contra la criminalidad organizada transnacional. - Learn more about the Basel Institute's asset recovery work and current programmes in Latin America.

Peru to reform key asset recovery law with Basel Institute support

Peru’s Attorney General, Tomás Gálvez, has established a multidisciplinary Commission to propose comprehensive reform of the country’s non-conviction based forfeiture framework. The Basel Institute on Governance has been appointed as the Technical Secretariat to the commission, as an extension of our longstanding cooperation with Peru’s Public Prosecutor’s Office Ministerio Público del Perú . Non-conviction based forfeiture – in Peru in the form of extinción de dominio legislation – allows the state to recover assets linked to illicit activity outside of criminal proceedings. By preventing criminal wealth from being hidden, transferred or reinvested, it can strengthen asset recovery and help disrupt the financial foundations of organised crime and corruption. About the Commission Chaired by the Attorney General, the Commission brings together senior prosecutors and representatives of institutions responsible for financial intelligence, law enforcement, asset recovery, taxation and public registries. It will also hear directly from specialised prosecutors, lawyers, judges and academics about the challenges they face and their proposals for reform. The Commission will meet twice a week and aims to produce a legislative proposal within three months. Its broad and inclusive approach is designed to deliver legislation that is both effective and respectful of human rights. Technical assistance for legal reforms Oscar Solórzano, Head of Latin America for the Basel Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery, will serve as the Commission’s Technical Secretariat, together with Deputy Head Walther Delgado. This is an important opportunity to support a balanced reform that strengthens Peru’s ability to recover illicit assets while upholding due process, protecting legitimately acquired property and reflecting international standards. These are critical aspects to ensure the law’s legitimacy, as Oscar Solórzano argued in 2024 in a Working Paper: Targeting illicit wealth through non-conviction based forfeiture: Identifying human rights and other standards for Latin America. Timeline of Peru’s non-conviction based forfeiture law The journey of Peru’s extinción de dominio framework makes an interesting case study in the development and use of laws designed to help combat corruption and organised crime. The Basel Institute has been closely involved for more than a decade, under programmes of the Swiss SECO-funded Programa GFP Subnacional, whose asset recovery activities are coordinated by Sergio Jiménez Niño, and the Basel Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery. The Peruvian experience provides a concrete example of a non-conviction based confiscation system that, following a period of significant implementation, is now undergoing a process of reassessment and adaptation in response to a substantial legal and political backlash framed largely around constitutional guarantees, due process and the protection of fundamental rights. The following timeline provides some insight and sets the context for the debates to come: 2018–2023: Building and testing a specialised system Peru’s current extinción de dominio framework was established by Legislative Decree 1373 in 2018, replacing the previous pérdida de dominio regime with an autonomous, property-based judicial process for recovering assets linked to illicit activity without requiring a prior criminal conviction. A specialised judicial and prosecutorial system was subsequently established across the country. Over the following years, the framework moved from legislation to practice. Prosecutors and judges developed experience, jurisprudence emerged and institutions worked to harmonise criteria. The Basel Institute supported this process through training, technical advice, case-based assistance, international cooperation and the development of reference material such as a two-part Compendium of Jurisprudence on Extinción de Dominio. The team also organised national conventions for specialised prosecutors and judges to harmonise understanding and application of the law across Peru. The system delivered significant results, recovering assets worth well hundreds of millions in US dollars and allowing Peruvian decisions to be recognised and enforced in several cases internationally. But implementation also brought difficult legal and practical questions to the surface, particularly concerning the autonomy of extinción de dominio from criminal proceedings, property rights, temporal application, evidentiary rules and procedural safeguards. 2024–2025: Constitutional scrutiny and legislative change In 2024, a constitutional challenge brought by Peru’s Ombudsman placed central elements of Legislative Decree 1373 before the Constitutional Court. At the same time, Congress was considering substantial legislative changes to the system. The Basel Institute set out technical arguments to inform the discussion, among others in public articles and a series of recorded debates. In May 2025, Law 32326 substantially amended the framework. The changes affected, among other things, the autonomy and scope of extinción de dominio, evidentiary requirements and limitation periods. The Public Prosecutor’s Office subsequently challenged the constitutionality of several of those amendments – a pending case that remains relevant to the current reform process. Then came Judgment 135/2025 of the Constitutional Court. The Court declared parts of the original framework unconstitutional and established binding interpretative criteria on issues including property rights, due process and the relationship between extinción de dominio and criminal proceedings. It ruled, in particular, that Legislative Decree 1373 could only apply to circumstances occurring after its entry into force. Importantly, the judgment did not bring extinción de dominio to an end. It established constitutional limits that the reform must respect, while also leaving room for legislative choices on important aspects of the system. 2026: From successive changes to comprehensive reform This is the legal and institutional landscape inherited by the new Commission. It must consider: - the original architecture of Legislative Decree 1373; - the amendments introduced by Law 32326; - the binding constitutional parameters established by Judgment 135/2025; and - the unresolved constitutional questions concerning the 2025 amendments. Beyond correcting individual provisions of the law, the Commission must grapple with the question: What model of non-conviction based forfeiture should Peru have, taking into account its constitutional framework, international standards and the criminal reality the mechanism is intended to address? Four areas at the heart of the reform The Commission has organised its work around four thematic areas. Each addresses a set of issues that has emerged from the experience of applying the law, the legislative changes and the Constitutional Court’s judgment. 1. Nature, scope and autonomy What should be the purpose and scope of non-conviction based forfeiture? When should it be available, what assets should it cover and how autonomous should it remain from criminal proceedings? The discussion also concerns its relationship with conviction-based confiscation and other asset recovery mechanisms. 2. Temporal application, legal certainty and protection of rights How should the framework address temporal application and limitation periods while protecting property and fair trial rights, bona fide third parties and victims? What consequences should subsequent criminal decisions have for assets already forfeited? 3. Procedure, evidence and due process What rules are needed for financial investigations, interim measures, burdens and standards of proof, rights of defence and judicial review? These questions go directly to how an effective asset recovery mechanism can operate within clear procedural guarantees. 4. Effectiveness International cooperation, enforcement and asset management. A successful system must also work beyond the courtroom. This area covers international cooperation, recognition and enforcement of foreign decisions, early information exchange, execution of confiscation decisions, management and preservation of assets, restitution and asset sharing, and coordination between the institutions involved in the asset recovery process. The Commission is addressing these areas progressively. It began in September by listening to specialised extinción de dominio prosecutors from across Peru about the problems encountered in practice and the effects of the legislative reform and the Constitutional Court judgment. National and international experts are then being invited to examine the different thematic areas before the Commission moves into deliberation and legislative drafting. Value of a multidisciplinary, participatory approach This approach is particularly valuable because many of the questions now being examined in Peru are not new. The autonomy of non-conviction based forfeiture, its relationship with criminal proceedings, retroactivity, property rights, evidentiary standards and due process have historically been among the main grounds on which such systems have been questioned around the world. What makes the Peruvian experience unusual is the possibility of observing these questions in real time. Rather than examining them retrospectively, the Commission can consider how they have arisen in a mature system, listen to those who have applied the law, hear different legal and institutional perspectives and assess possible solutions while the framework itself is being reconsidered. In that sense, Peru provides a particularly interesting opportunity to revisit in practice issues that have accompanied non-conviction based forfeiture internationally for decades. These are also central to the Basel Institute’s Working Paper 54: Targeting illicit wealth through non-conviction based forfeiture: Identifying human rights and other standards for Latin America, which examines how effectiveness, human rights, procedural safeguards and international standards can be reconciled in the design and application of these mechanisms. A reform against the clock The Commission is working under an exceptionally demanding timeframe. It has only three months to develop a comprehensive proposal on issues involving constitutional rights, criminal policy and the practical effectiveness of asset recovery. The short deadline reflects a deliberate sense of urgency. After months in which the reform process had largely stalled, Attorney General Tomás Gálvez has decided to use his legislative initiative to move it forward and seek a workable proposal as quickly as possible. Organised crime and illicit economies have not stood still in the meantime, and Peru needs an effective legal framework to target the assets that sustain them. That urgency is also reflected in the way the Commission is working. It meets twice a week, bringing together specialised prosecutors and national and international experts to examine the four thematic areas, test different approaches and progressively build consensus. The methodology requires intensive legal and comparative analysis, but also negotiation between different institutional perspectives within a highly compressed timeframe. The task is difficult precisely because both considerations are real: the urgency of strengthening Peru’s response to organised crime, and the need to ensure that the resulting framework is constitutionally sound, effective and sustainable.

Latin American practitioners join forces against evolving financial crime

Cryptoassets are transforming the work of investigators, prosecutors and asset recovery specialists across Latin America. At a dedicated workshop in Luxembourg, more than 30 practitioners came together to share how they are responding to the challenge – with practical solutions, strong regional leadership and a readiness to learn from one another. The workshop was co-organised by the Basel Institute on Governance and the UK National Crime Agency NCA . It was hosted by Luxembourg’s Bureau de gestion des avoirs as a side event to the 10th Global Conference on Criminal Finances and Cryptoassets. Participants came from prosecution services, police forces, financial intelligence units, supervisory authorities and the judiciary. As members of the Latin America Crypto Community of Practice, they share a determination to confront the rapid growth of cryptoassets and their exploitation by organised crime. Regional leadership in action The workshop placed the region’s own expertise at its centre. Practitioners from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Peru presented cases involving cryptoassets and asset recovery. They shared the approaches they had tested, the obstacles they had encountered and the lessons they had learned. The discussions reflected the tremendous effort taking place across Latin America. Practitioners are tackling complex technical, legal and operational questions, often while the risks, technologies and criminal methods continue to evolve. Maria Cordeiro, Senior Specialist, Asset Recovery at the Basel Institute and coordinator of the Latin America Crypto Community of Practice, said: The commitment and creativity of practitioners across Latin America are remarkable. They are not waiting for perfect laws, unlimited resources or ready-made solutions. They are getting to grips with difficult cases, testing practical approaches and helping one another move forward. That passion and leadership are exactly what this community is designed to support. Working through shared challenges Participants worked together on practical challenges related to the seizure, confiscation, custody, management and sale of cryptoassets. The discussions were frank and focused on finding workable solutions. Held in Spanish and under the Chatham House rule, the workshop provided a trusted space in which practitioners could speak openly and learn from their peers. The group also explored ways to strengthen cooperation against organised crime, illicit trafficking and other threats involving cryptoassets. These crimes operate across borders, making strong professional relationships and rapid information exchange essential. The workshop was opened by Oscar Solórzano, Director for Latin America at the Basel Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery. Perla, a subject matter expert from the UK National Crime Agency NCA , co-moderated the session. Partnerships and looking forward We thank the NCA for co-organising the workshop under its Illicit Finance programme in Latin America and the Luxembourg Bureau de gestion des avoirs for hosting it so generously. We are also grateful to the NCA, the US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs INL in Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru, and the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program ICITAP in Colombia for funding the participation of practitioners in the workshop and the Global Conference. We also thank current sponsors of our Latin America Crypto Community of Practice for their support for this practitioner-led exchange: Kodex, Asset Reality, Tradias, VerifyVASP, Inca Digital, Coinbase, TRM Labs and CAT Labs. The workshop showed the value of bringing committed practitioners together around real cases and shared challenges. Discussions are already underway about a dedicated Latin America Crypto & Asset Recovery Conference in 2027.

La extinción de dominio en el marco de los estándares e instrumentos internacionales

Case Study 13: The Beauty Queen case: non-conviction based forfeiture across borders

Back in action: How the UK is reviving unexplained wealth orders (The Academy Bulletin)

Quick Guide 41: Managing seized and confiscated assets

Working Paper 55: Compensating the victims of foreign bribery: UK legislation, practice and recommended reforms