The paper targets the nexus between corruption and money laundering. Scholars and practitioners recently observed how offshore financial centers and financial infrastructures have become central in facilitating corruption and other criminal activities. 

Offshore vehicles often serve to conceal the connections between business people and politically exposed persons. Secrecy jurisdictions and service providers have emerged as key actors in these illicit schemes. 

The paper explores the following questions: 

Corruption is frequently associated with money alone and the behaviours of a few individual “bad apples” operating in otherwise healthy governance systems. This is too simplistic. As the latest research shows, including research in Tanzania and Uganda on which this Policy Brief is based, corruption is a networked phenomenon. This Policy Brief explains what this means and its implications for anti-corruption practice.

The article analyses drivers and determinants of illicit wildlife trade (IWT), targeting those factors that support the participation of individuals in poaching and transportation of wildlife goods.

These seven Recommendations emerge from the 5th Global Conference on Criminal Finances and Cryptocurrencies, held virtually on 7-8 December 2021.

The annual conference is organised by the Working Group on Criminal Finances and Cryptocurrencies, a tripartite initiative of the Basel Institute on Governance, INTERPOL and Europol that dates back to 2014 and was formally established in 2016.

This policy paper outlines three general recommendations for the G20 provided by the B20 Integrity and Compliance Taskforce under the B21 Italy 2021 process.

The Basel Institute on Governance was proud to serve as Network Partner to the B20 Integrity and Compliance Taskforce through its Collective Action team.

Environmental criminals and their corrupt facilitators get rich by destroying our planet and its natural resources. This publication for the Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (TNRC) project explains how and why to confiscate their illicit assets – with or without a criminal conviction.

The paper investigates the role of criminal networks in fostering illegal wildlife trade (IWT), and how these relational structures interact with transnational organized crime. The paper frames these topics within the debate around the opportunistic or organized nature of IWT. The aim is to understand how chaotic behaviors can transform into an ordered and organized strategy.

In this short update, Managing Director Gretta Fenner sums up our activities and achievements over the last three months and looks ahead to the challenges and opportunities of 2022.

The newsletter features our latest news, blogs, quick guides and other publications, as well as joint articles with friends of the Basel Institute. We take this chance to welcome five new staff members to the team.

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This article is the Basel Institute’s contribution to the Global Forum on Law, Justice and Development Review of Legal Experiences and Global Practices Relating to COVID-19, published in December 2021. The Global Forum is an initiative of The World Bank. The contribution was submitted in July 2020; the version below contains minor updates to hyperlinks.

The Policy on Responsible Investing of British International Investment (CDC Group until April 2022) supports the impact investor's dual mandate to "deliver responsible and sustainable development impact and to make sustainable financial returns".

It notably encourages the use of Collective Action as a way to go beyond compliance in tackling business integrity (BI) risks. Page 30 reads: