At a Basel Institute-hosted webinar on illicit enrichment on 30 June 2021, practitioners from Uganda, Kenya and Mauritius agreed that illicit enrichment laws have significant potential to help their countries – and others – target corruption and recover stolen assets. But, they say, significant hurdles still need to be overcome, especially in transnational cases.
A new open-access book published by the Basel Institute on Governance explores the rapid growth of illicit enrichment legislation around the world and its use to target corruption and recover illicitly obtained assets.
What does illicit enrichment mean for combating corruption?
An increasing number of countries are introducing mechanisms to target people who enjoy an amount of wealth that can't be explained by their lawful income.
Illicit Enrichment by Andrew Dornbierer provides a comprehensive guide to illicit enrichment laws and their application to target unexplained wealth and recover proceeds of corruption and other crimes. The book covers both criminal and civil-based laws from around the world.
Investigators, prosecutors, legislators and academics alike will benefit from the clear descriptions and practical guidance on different approaches to targeting unexplainable increases in wealth, how to establish cases in court, and common legal challenges to illicit enrichment laws.
Publication
Quick Guide 5: Illicit enrichment
This quick guide offers a short introduction to illicit enrichment laws, which are emerging as a powerful tool to combat corruption and recover stolen assets. Originally published in May 2019, it was updated in June 2021 following the Basel Institute’s publication of an open-access book on Illicit Enrichment: a Guide to Laws Targeting Unexplained Wealth.