The Basel Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR), in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), conducted a National Workshop on the management of seized/frozen and confiscated criminal assets in Accra, Ghana, from 24 to 26 February 2016.
In the context of the “Strengthening Uganda’s Anti Corruption Response (SUGAR)” project, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), experts from the Basel Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) conducted a four- day training workshop on the concepts and process for conducting a Money Laundering/Terrorism Financing (ML/TF) National Risk Assessment (NRA) for representatives from governmental authorities, supervisory authorities and private sector, in Kampala, Uganda, from 19 – 22 January 2016.
In Peru where the Basel Institute recently established its first country office in the context of its more recent public finance management programme funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), the Institute’s training experts of the International Center for Asset Recovery (ICAR) conducted two 5-day back-to-back training programmes in financial investigations and asset recovery from 23 May to 4 June 2016.
Experts from ICAR delivered a 4-day training workshop on Operational Analysis to the Peruvian Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) in Lima from 6 to 9 June 2016 with the aim to strengthen the FIU's analytical and operational capacities in financial investigations.
The Basel Institute on Governance in partnership with the two Romanian not-for-profit organisations RISE Project and the Journalism Development Network (JDN)’s Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) hosted a third training workshop on Financial Investigations and Asset Recovery – “Follow the money” – on 28–29 April 2016 in Basel, Switzerland. The workshop was organised in the context of a three-year initiative on "Mapping and Visualising Cross-Border Crime” launched in October 2014 and funded by the Swiss-Romanian Cooperation Programme.
Experts from ICAR delivered a 5-day training workshop on Financial Investigations and Asset Recovery for the benefit of the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from 11 to 15 April 2016.
In the context of the SUGAR project (“Strengthening Uganda’s Anti-Corruption and Accountability Response”) project, funded by the UK Department for International Development, experts from the Basel Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery conducted its first training workshop in early July 2016 as part of an extended train-the-trainer learning programme.
The International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) has further expanded its operational engagement in South America partnering with Paraguay where ICAR experts, in partnership with the Ministerio Público (Public Prosecutor’s Office) of Paraguay, conducted a 5-day training programme in financial investigation and asset recovery in Asunción from 25 to 29 July 2016.
At the opening ceremony of the second Financial Investigations and Asset Recovery training workshop in Uganda during August 2016, the Inspector General of Government, Lady Justice Irene Mulyagonja, emphasised the importance of hitting those convicted of corruption where it hurts most: in addition to imprisonment, illicit assets had to be confiscated as this was essential for the anti-corruption fight to be meaningful.
Romania has recently launched a project to “Support achieving the National Anticorruption Strategy objectives by increasing the efficiency of the asset recovery and management”. The project is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation (SDC), through the Swiss-Romanian Co-operation Programme.