The Zanzibar Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Authority (ZAECA) and Basel Institute on Governance have today signed a Memorandum of Understanding to support Zanzibar’s fight against corruption.

The agreement covers a suite of capacity building and mentoring interventions focused on financial investigations, international cooperation to gather information and evidence to prosecute cases of corruption and related financial crimes, and the recovery of stolen assets.

A new free eLearning course on the Basel Institute’s virtual learning platform addresses a common barrier to successful corruption and money laundering cases and attempts to recover stolen assets from abroad.

Major corruption and money laundering cases often have an international dimension and almost always require law enforcement practitioners to request information and cooperation from their counterparts abroad.

The UN General Assembly Special Session against Corruption (UNGASS) calls for countries to adopt a wide range of measures to recover assets stolen through corruption.

This includes non-conviction based forfeiture (NCBF), which is emerging as a powerful tool to recover illicit assets when a criminal conviction is not possible.

What can we learn from actual cases of NCBF around the world? What should States consider when introducing NCBF legislation? How can it be applied more effectively and what challenges stand in the way?

A new open-access book published by the Basel Institute on Governance explores the rapid growth of illicit enrichment legislation around the world and its use to target corruption and recover illicitly obtained assets.

What does illicit enrichment mean for combating corruption?

An increasing number of countries are introducing mechanisms to target people who enjoy an amount of wealth that can't be explained by their lawful income.

Our International Centre for Asset Recovery training team has delivered another virtual version of our flagship Financial Investigations and Asset Recovery training programme to 19 anti-corruption officers from 14 African countries.

The training was provided at the request of the Commonwealth Africa Anti-Corruption Centre (CAACC) and funded by the African Development Bank. The virtual delivery took place using video conference and the Basel Institute’s LEARN platform.

The Basel Institute on Governance is delighted to have signed a cooperation agreement with the Procuraduría General del Estado in Ecuador. The agreement covers collaboration with our International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) in the recovery of assets resulting from corruption, money laundering and other financial crimes affecting the State.

Illicit Enrichment by Andrew Dornbierer provides a comprehensive guide to illicit enrichment laws and their application to target unexplained wealth and recover proceeds of corruption and other crimes. The book covers both criminal and civil-based laws from around the world.

Investigators, prosecutors, legislators and academics alike will benefit from the clear descriptions and practical guidance on different approaches to targeting unexplainable increases in wealth, how to establish cases in court, and common legal challenges to illicit enrichment laws.

We have just released a detailed case study on the prosecution of a South African fishing company, Hout Bay Fishing Industries, and efforts to recover the company's illicit assets.

Published under our Green Corruption programme, the case study is authored by Advocate Caroline Dutot of Ardent Chambers, Jersey, with contributions from Howard Sharp, QC. 

Published under our Green Corruption programme, this is a case study about a South African fishing company, Hout Bay Fishing Industries, that overfished lobster and other protected fish in deliberate breach of government-established quotas. The case study contains numerous important lessons for those seeking to follow the money in large wildlife trafficking cases.

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.