This case study describes how authorities in Kenya and Jersey worked together to unlock progress in a long-running case involving around USD 3.7 million in corruptly acquired funds.
The money was held in the bank account of the shelf company Windward Trading, which was used to channel corrupt payments relating to power generation in Kenya.
This case study describes how Kenya’s civil illicit enrichment legislation enabled the recovery of corruptly acquired assets from a former Chief Accountant at the Treasury.
It examines a 2021 unexplained wealth (illicit enrichment) case in Kenya involving the former Chief Accountant Patrick Ochieno Abachi. The case is related to Kenya’s so-called Anglo Leasing scandal, in which 18 high-value government security contracts were allegedly awarded to fictitious companies in the early 2000s.
Anti-corruption and asset recovery specialists in Kenya, Sierra Leone and Zambia have taken an important step forward in developing their ability to recover the proceeds of financial and other serious crime.
Within days of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, Western governments imposed unprecedented economic sanctions against the Russian state and certain Russian oligarchs. They are now working to identify and freeze assets linked to sanctioned individuals and entities – a magnificent challenge in itself.
Our International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) training team was in the Kenyan capital Nairobi last week, delivering a Financial Investigations and Asset Recovery training course to a multi-agency group of officers responsible for anti-corruption and asset recovery.
Anti-corruption investigators and prosecutors from Kenya, Sierra Leone and Zambia joined experts from our International Centre for Asset Recovery on 16–18 November to share experiences of non-conviction based forfeiture (NCBF) laws in their countries.
This case study examines a 2021 unexplained wealth (illicit enrichment) case in Kenya involving a former Chief Accountant at the Treasury, Patrick Ochieno Abachi.
The case is related to Kenya’s so-called Anglo Leasing scandal, in which 18 high-value government security contracts were allegedly awarded to fictitious companies in the early 2000s. It illustrates one set of circumstances in which civil unexplained wealth (or civil illicit enrichment) legislation can be an extremely useful tool to target assets stolen through corruption.
At a Basel Institute-hosted webinar on illicit enrichment on 30 June 2021, practitioners from Uganda, Kenya and Mauritius agreed that illicit enrichment laws have significant potential to help their countries – and others – target corruption and recover stolen assets. But, they say, significant hurdles still need to be overcome, especially in transnational cases.
Local certification is emerging as an interesting way for large companies and their supply chains to help address compliance and due diligence issues that can be a barrier to business. A recent Basel Institute working paper showed how local certification programmes developed with a Collective Action approach can help:
Twenty anti-corruption investigators and financial intelligence analysts from 10 African countries completed an intensive Advanced Operational Analysis course last week hosted by the Commonwealth Africa Anti-Corruption Centre (CAACC).