Mozambique’s tuna bonds scandal: yes it’s about money, but more than that – it’s about human lives
The so-called “tuna bond” corruption scandal in Mozambique has drawn international attention. Twenty people are facing corruption and money laundering charges in the country. Swiss bank Credit Suisse has agreed to pay USD 475 million in fines and write off USD 200 million in debt owed by Mozambique as part of a series of settlements with regulators in the US, UK and Switzerland for its role in the affair.
Our partners and team of asset recovery specialists in Mozambique are celebrating the entry into force of a new law on asset recovery. It significantly extends Mozambique’s capability to recover illicit assets arising from corruption and other criminal activity.
Thirty-three prosecutors, 22 judges and 22 investigators from across Mozambique’s 11 provinces have completed a series of intensive training courses on anti-corruption and asset recovery.
Delivered by the Mozambique team of our International Centre for Asset Recovery, the training sessions took place over three weeks from 17 August to 4 September. Investigators from SERNIC, Mozambique’s National Criminal Investigation Service, joined prosecutors from the Prosecutor General’s Office and judges from across the country.
This week, our team in Mozambique has started a series of virtual training courses for prosecutors, investigators and judges across 11 provinces. Getting to this point has been quite a challenge, as Senior Asset Recovery Specialist Margarida Bandeira de Lima explains below. It shows the vital importance of basic technology in enabling public officials responsible for fighting corruption to do their jobs.
In her Annual Report presentation to the Assembly of the Republic of Mozambique broadcast on national television, the Attorney General of Mozambique, Beatriz Buchili, emphasised the need for approval of a new Asset Recovery Bill.
This important law will provide Mozambique with more effective ways to recover stolen assets. It also establishes the new Mozambican Asset Recovery Office and Asset Management Office.
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 first intensive training workshop on Financial Investigations and Asset Recovery in Mozambique by the Basel Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) training team sparked vivid discussions on the practical challenges of investigating and combating money laundering in Mozambique and on how different agencies can work better together to achieve this.
An expert from the International Centre for Asset Recovery, a part of the Basel Institute on Governance, visited Mozambique between 10-14 October with a view to conduct an on-site assessment of the anti-corruption legislative package that had been proposed by the Council of Ministers to the Assembly of the Republic. The project, jointly financed by USAID and DfID, sought to assess the impact of the package in the Mozambican legal system, as well as to benchmark it with the international and regional standards on preventing and combating corruption.