Asset recovery tools are integral to combating corruption, organised crime, sanctions evasion and other profit-motivated crimes. However, in many participating States of the OSCE, the range of asset recovery tools available to law enforcement and criminal justice agencies is limited.

This Working Paper identifies legislative mechanisms in OSCE participating States that empower the state to confiscate suspected or proven proceeds of crime. The overall objective is to ascertain: 

A model law on non-conviction based forfeiture (NCBF), drafted 10 years ago by UNODC to support countries in Latin America in their efforts to recover stolen assets, will be updated following four days of intense discussions among practitioners and asset recovery experts from across the continent.

Peru’s non-conviction based confiscation law is a crucial element in the country’s asset recovery toolkit, emphasised the country’s Special General Public Prosecutor, Dr. Daniel Soria Luján, following a three-day training course for 32 Peruvian prosecutors.

The virtual training was focused on Extinción de dominio, the country's non-conviction based confiscation law, whose implementation the Basel Institute is supporting through technical assistance and capacity building.

This case study describes the background, legal strategy and conclusion of a landmark case of non-conviction based confiscation in Peru that has enabled the successful confiscation of around one million dollars linked to terrorist financing.

The case relates to Nelly Marion Evans Risco, a British-Peruvian woman known popularly as “The Nun”. Evans held funds in a bank account in Switzerland that were intended to finance the Shining Path terrorist organisation, whose violent acts in the 1990s were responsible for an estimated 60,000 deaths in Peru.

I recently participated in a panel on the role of non-state actors in the recovery of stolen assets and proceeds of corruption at the 2020 International Anti-Corruption Conference, at which I presented the so-called “Russian arms dealer case”. The case is relatively small in monetary terms – around USD 700,000 plus interest – but hugely significant in terms of asset recovery efforts and international co-operation.

Peru’s Attorney General’s Office has recorded another successful use of its non-conviction based confiscation law, extinción de dominio, to recover stolen assets from abroad.

The case involves around USD 8.5 million plus interest frozen in a bank account in Switzerland since 2004. The assets derived from contracts for the purchase of overvalued MiG-29 and Sukhoi Su-25 aircraft during the government of Alberto Fujimori.