As countries improve their capacity to recover assets derived from criminal activity, they are faced with a challenge: how should these assets be managed while the judicial process is underway?
Peru’s non-conviction based confiscation law is a crucial element in the country’s asset recovery toolkit, emphasised the country’s Special General Public Prosecutor, Dr. Daniel Soria Luján, following a three-day training course for 32 Peruvian prosecutors.
The virtual training was focused on Extinción de dominio, the country's non-conviction based confiscation law, whose implementation the Basel Institute is supporting through technical assistance and capacity building.
This position paper by the Global Coalition to Fight Financial Crime (GCFFC) outlines a set of features that GCFFC members recommend jurisdictions should include in beneficial ownership disclosure regimes.
Our recently released Basel AML Index 2021 highlights how slow and ineffective implementation of beneficial ownership registries continues to provide safe havens for dirty money.
We argue that this is damaging for individual jurisdictions, but more importantly undermines all global efforts to combat money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF). Excerpt from the full report:
The Basel AML Index 10th Edition explore four aspects hindering the global fight against money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF). The first element crunched Financial Action Task Force (FATF) data on how jurisdictions are responding to money laundering threats related to virtual assets. The answer: not well at all. Excerpt from the full report:
The use of virtual assets such as cryptocurrencies is exploding – for legitimate as well as illicit purposes.
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.
The use of virtual assets such as cryptocurrencies has expanded hugely around the world. Thousands of new users are added each day, and more individuals now use cryptocurrencies than trade on stock exchanges. Yet, as with all emerging technologies, there are risks that cryptocurrencies can be used for illegal activity such as money laundering and terrorist financing.
Released today, the 10th annual edition of the Basel AML Index raises grave questions about whether jurisdictions are serious about tackling their money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) risks, and what is holding them back.
The Basel AML Index is an independent annual ranking that assesses ML/TF threats around the world and the capacity of jurisdictions’ anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) measures to address their specific risks.
See summary report released in December 2021: Boosting Co-operation in Asset Recovery: Exploring the Potential of Private Sector Engagement and Public-Private Collaboration
How can law enforcement agencies, financial intelligence units and private financial institutions such as banks work better together to identify, freeze and confiscate criminal assets?
The ability to forge personal relationships and network with counterparts from other professions and agencies was somewhat lost during the pandemic restrictions. But the latest International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) training programme delivered in Malawi was a strong reminder of just how important this personal networking is in the fight against corruption.