Financial crimes such as corruption, fraud, and embezzlement generate significant profits, often at the expense of the public budget. These proceeds of crime are usually hidden outside of the country where the crime was originally committed, and laundered through complex financial and commercial transactions, often spanning across numerous jurisdictions.

It has been estimated that roughly 1.6 trillion USD in criminal proceeds are laundered through the international financial system each year. To put this in perspective, this sum is more than the combined GDPs of Switzerland, Portugal, Romania, Belarus, and Austria in 2011.

Anti-money laundering systems have the potential to curb the use of proceeds of corruption and other crimes by the perpetrators. An effectively implemented anti-money laundering framework limits the channels through which illicit funds can be laundered, making crime riskier and reducing the incentives for corrupt activities.

The transition process in many countries in Central and Eastern Europe from a one-party state to a democratic system has been long and difficult and has frequently been accompanied by institutional instability.

The judiciary and law enforcement bodies have been no exception. Both have suffered from a weak legal tradition in many countries of the region, weak implementation of existing legislation, limited operational effectiveness, corruption and the influence of informal personal networks. These developments can also be observed in the area of financial intelligence.

The recovery of stolen assets is a fundamental principle of the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC). By including this element in the said Convention, the international community recognizes the negative impacts on countries and populations deprived of the billions of dollars that are diverted each year by their corrupt leaders and public officials.

Since the mid-1990s, the fight against corruption has become an integral part of the international development agenda. Along with the growing concern about corruption, the problem of assets stolen by public officials came to the fore of the agenda. This is evidenced by a steady increase in international agreements, such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions adopted in 1997, and the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) signed in 2003.

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.

The Millennium Development Goals were adopted by the global community under the aegis of the UN in 2000. The first of these goals aims at halving absolute poverty of the about 1.1 billion people who live on less than 1 US dollar a day.

Eine ganze Reihe von Problemfällen hat zu einer breiten Diskussion über das Verhalten der Verantwortlichen für Vorsorgeeinrichtungen geführt, insbesondere bei der internen und externen Verwaltung der Vorsorgevermögens, und aufgezeigt, dass beachtliche Defizite bestehen, vor allem wenn Vergleiche mit anderen professionellen Vermögensverwaltern, wie Banken, gezogen werden.

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.