This Working Paper explores the wide variety of non-conviction based (NCB) forfeiture laws in Latin America, with a special focus on the region’s predominant model, Extinción de dominio.
It argues that NCB forfeiture legislation, which allows for the recovery of stolen assets outside of criminal proceedings, can contribute significantly to a state’s criminal policy response to rampant economic and organised crime.
Corruption in the timber trade is a serious threat, economically and environmentally. Forest-rich countries in Latin America are particularly exposed.
Those include Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, where our Green Corruption programme has been working with forestry authorities and environmental agencies to help them assess and mitigate corruption risks.
This publication (in Spanish) focuses on the use of non-conviction based forfeiture legislation in Peru (Extinción de Dominio) to recover instrumentalities of crime. It is a collaborative effort of asset recovery experts of the Basel Institute on Governance under the Programa GFP Subnacional or Subnational Public Finance Management Strengthening Programme in Peru, funded by the Swiss SECO Cooperation.
A new guide to non-conviction based forfeiture published by GAFILAT, the Latin American body of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) sets out good practices for this powerful but under-used form of asset recovery legislation. It also emphasises the need for laws to align with both domestic constitutions and international human rights standards.
USD 94 million dollars is the amount of money recovered so far by the Peruvian State through its Extinción de Dominio law, according to Attorney General Juan Carlos Villena Campana.
Introduced in 2018, the non-conviction based forfeiture law has been rolled out across the country via a subsystem of specialised prosecutor’s offices, tribunals and courts. The development and implementation of the law was supported by the Basel Institute and its International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR), which has worked with the country’s criminal justice authorities since 2013.
The illegal wildlife trade is operating at an industrial scale. It has a direct impact on the accelerating rate of biodiversity loss and deprives local communities of sustainable livelihoods.
The regional government of San Martín, Peru has approved a significant new regulation to protect its forests from the devastating impact of illegal logging. This regulation aims to disrupt corruption in forest management, preventing “wood washing” by revolutionising the procedure and system for approving transport permits (guías de transporte forestal).
Authorities in Cusco in southeast Peru have succeeded in recovering a house and land linked to acts of corruption by the former mayor of the province of Canchis, using a recently introduced non-conviction based forfeiture law.
Better management of public infrastructure projects could save significant amounts of taxpayers’ money and result in better buildings, roads and bridges. But the public officials managing the projects are often unaware of academic frameworks and tools that could help them to manage the investments more efficiently and transparently.
A new academic course developed by our Subnational Public Finance Management Strengthening Programme (Programa GFP) and the University of Piura seeks to address that issue for public officials in Peru.
Corruption prevention measures are often talked about at the national level: “Governments need to do this and that to prevent corruption.”
But Peru’s Regional Government of San Martín provides a good example of what can be achieved at the subnational levels to increase public integrity and transparency.
The ingredients: strong political commitment, a clear understanding of regional corruption vulnerabilities and dedicated technical support.