This guide to managing risks that affect public integrity was developed by Peru’s Secretariat for Public Integrity of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, with technical assistance from the Swiss-funded Subnational Public Finance Management Programme implemented by the Basel Institute on Governance.

The guide seeks to help Peru’s public institutions reduce the risk of corruption and other misconduct, especially in critical areas such as service provision, public procurement and human resources.

This case study explains how the Peruvian State used its non-conviction based forfeiture law, extinción de dominio, to recover a Swiss bank account containing illicit kickbacks paid for the purchase of war planes.

This case was the first of a series of cases between Peru and Switzerland involving Peru’s extinción de dominio law, which enables the confiscation of illicit assets in cases where a criminal conviction of an individual is not possible or desirable. It has paved the way for other proceedings, some of which are still pending in the tribunals.

Peru’s first National Convention of Prosecutors Specialised in Extinción de Dominio brought together 80 prosecutors, lawyers, police officers and other justice practitioners to share experiences on the application of Peru’s extinción de dominio law.

Extinción de dominio is a form of non-conviction based forfeiture (NBCF) law common in Latin America. It allows the State to confiscate illicit assets where a criminal conviction is not possible in relation to the specific crime generating those assets.

Oscar Solórzano, Head of Latin America at the Basel Institute on Governance and Senior Asset Recovery Specialist at our International Centre for Asset Recovery, interviewed Dr Hamilton Castro Trigoso, Provincial Prosecutor of the First Provisional Provincial Prosecutor's Office for Extinción de dominio in Lima, on his experiences in investigating and enforcing asset confiscation judgements abroad.

In the first such case in the Americas, Peru has issued a judgement ordering the non-conviction based confiscation of over USD 1.5 million in assets frozen in Mexico.

The achievement adds to Peru’s substantial experience and jurisprudence involving its 2019 law of Extinción de dominio. The non-conviction based forfeiture (NCBF) law allows assets of illicit origin to be confiscated in a judicial procedure, even if a criminal conviction is not possible.