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.

At a regional meeting of legal practitioners, politicians and academics from selected Latin American countries and Spain, participants converged on the need for a strong human rights focus in non-conviction based forfeiture (NCBF) laws – laws that allow the confiscation of assets without a criminal conviction.

Within days of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, Western governments imposed unprecedented economic sanctions against the Russian state and certain Russian oligarchs. They are now working to identify and freeze assets linked to sanctioned individuals and entities – a magnificent challenge in itself.

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.

The Basel Institute's Green Corruption programme has commenced two new grants funded by the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) under the IWT Challenge Fund 7th Round.

A model law on non-conviction based forfeiture (NCBF), drafted 10 years ago by UNODC to support countries in Latin America in their efforts to recover stolen assets, will be updated following four days of intense discussions among practitioners and asset recovery experts from across the continent.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF)’s regional body in Latin America, GAFILAT, has welcomed our International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) to join its Asset Recovery Network (Red de Recuperación de Activos del GAFILAT, or RRAG) as an observer member.

A newly published Compendium of Jurisprudence on Extinción de Dominio will enable Peruvian judges, prosecutors and other law enforcement actors to assess progress and legal precedents in the implementation of Peru’s 2019 law on non-conviction based confiscation (Extinción de dominio).

Claims that Switzerland is “paternalistic” in its approach to returning stolen assets to their rightful countries are simplistic, argues Senior Asset Recovery Specialist Oscar Solórzano in this opinion article for Swiss news and information platform Swissinfo. The article is available on the Swissinfo site in German and Spanish.