On 24-25 October 2013, in coordination with the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, the International Centre for Asset Recovery organised and hosted a two-day workshop on the topic of "Returning Stolen Assets." The workshop took place in Küsnacht (Zürich), Switzerland.
From 14 to 18 September 2015, the International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) of the Basel Institute participated in the 13th Interpol Global Programme on Anti-Corruption, Financial Crimes and Asset Recovery in Dakar, Senegal, coordinated by Interpol's Anti-Corruption and Financial Crimes Unit in partnership with the US Department of Justice Criminal Division and the Anti-Corruption of Senegal (OFNAC). The five-day workshop brought together some 34 participants from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo.
At an event in London co-hosted by the Basel Institute on Governance and Chatham House on Monday 10 July 2017, panelists from Jersey, Kenya, Nigeria and the UK agreed that partnership, understanding each other’s systems and procedures, and informal communication between requesting and requested states is critical to successfully recover stolen public funds internationally.
This paper looks at the use of proceeds of asset recovered from Sani Abacha, Vladimir Montesinos, and Ferdinand Marcos and their families. It will also briefly address a much more recent case involving Kazakhstan.
Repatriation of stolen monies makes available additional resources for development activities. The challenge is to ensure efficient, accountable and transparent use of such assets, given states may lack capacity or political will and that corruption may be prevalent at various levels of government.