The Basel Institute's 29th Working Paper, published today, aims to contribute to the international policy dialogue on the link between asset recovery and countries’ pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Publication
Working Paper 29: Recovering assets in support of the SDGs – from soft to hard assets for development
This Working Paper aims to contribute to the international policy dialogue on the link between asset recovery and countries’ pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals.
It contends that supporting countries in recovering stolen assets and promoting sustainable development are mutually reinforcing. It also aims to correct the false reputation of asset recovery as a very technical legalistic field of development cooperation, and to generate broader understanding of the far-reaching role that asset recovery can play to foster development.
Following ICAR’s Advanced Operational Analysis training workshop at the Financial Intelligence Unit of Ecuador (UAFE) from 13–17 May 2019, a panel comprising representatives of the UAFE, the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and the Anti-money Laundering Unit of the National Police of Ecuador discussed the challenges of coordinating and harmonising efforts to fight money laundering and asset recovery.
Elmer Chirre, Peru's Specialised Prosecutor for Corruption, and Amado Enco, Specialised Anti-Corruption State Attorney, have jointly recovered over PEN 65 million (USD 19.5 million) in the first successful asset recovery case related to Operation Car Wash.
The Framework for the Return of Assets from Corruption and Crime in Kenya (FRACCK), agreed and signed by the Governments of Kenya, Jersey, Switzerland and the UK in 2018 with support from the Basel Institute's International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR), is already generating strong interest for its "innovative" and "novel" approach to asset return.
These were the words of Brigitte Strobel-Shaw, Officer-in-Charge of the Corruption and Economic Crime Branch of the UNODC, during a May 7-9 International Expert Meeting on the Return of Stolen Assets.
Experts from the Basel Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery and country office in Peru conducted a Financial Investigations and Asset Recovery training workshop in Quito, Ecuador from 6–10 May 2019.
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.
Kenya's Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has recovered 19 corruptly acquired assets worth KES 2,730,571,000 (over USD 27 million) in the first four months of 2019 alone. The assets – a mix of cash and landed properties, including a fire station, Kenya Railways land and a beachfront property – are being returned to the public treasury, along with significant fines paid by individuals convicted of corruption and bribery.
Publication
Threat Finance
From the Taliban in Southwest Asia to al Shabaab in the Horn of Africa to drug-trafficking organizations in Mexico, the behavior, capabilities, and ultimate success or failure of terrorist, criminal, and other transnational threats are closely tied to economic and financial factors.
Publication
Understanding Terrorist Finance
Understanding Terrorist Finance provides powerful new insights into the financial and economic realities of terrorist groups. Dispelling popular myths, the book presents the first unified coherent framework for the systematic analysis of terrorist finance and includes empirical studies of the financing of groups in Europe, Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East.