Twenty-five practitioners from 12 countries gathered online on 29 June for the first virtual meeting of the new Knowledge Community on Asset Recovery in Latin America.
An initiative of the Basel Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery, the regional Knowledge Community provides a collaborative space for interaction between leading practitioners in the field of asset recovery and international judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
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.
Technical assistance from the Basel Institute on Governance in a landmark case of non-conviction based confiscation in Peru has enabled the successful confiscation of around one million dollars linked to terrorist financing.
This speech was given at a preparatory meeting for the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) against Corruption in 2021.
It deals with non-conviction based confiscation as a method to recover assets stolen through corruption, and how challenges in international cooperation in these cases can and should be overcome.
See Spotlight on non-conviction based confiscation at UNGASS preparatory meeting.
Another 30 specialised judges in Peru have benefited from innovative training in Extinción de Dominio, a new form of legislation that allows stolen assets to be confiscated even if the asset holder cannot formally be convicted of a crime.
The two-day course, which took place on 3–4 September in the Superior Court of the city of Trujillo, is part of a wider series of training programmes aimed at building the capacity of specialised judges across Peru to implement the new legislation.
The High Court of Piura in northwestern Peru has announced it will set up a specialised court for cases relating to a new law on extinción de dominio (which roughly translates as "extinction of possession"), a form of non-conviction-based asset forfeiture.