Asset recovery in a technical sense is the return of money stolen through corruption from one country and hidden in another. At CiFAR we take a more holistic approach. For us, asset recovery encompasses not only the return of that money, but also ensuring that the process itself contributes to preventing corruption, tackling the structures that allow for illicit financial flows, and building open and accountable governance systems.
On this page, you can find definitions of some of the most important terms and videos explaining how public money is stolen and considering the issue of asset freezes.
Tools & Support
This part of our website is designed to provide you with the tools and information you need to work on asset recovery.
Principles & Standards that can help with your case
This page covers some of the basic terminology and a simple explanation of how cross-border corruption is carried out. Links to the left provide more detailed information on some of the specifics of asset recovery.
Asset recovery and the Sustainable Development Goals
If you need further support, we’re happy to help. You can visit our Get Support page, or you can contact us directly at info (at) cifar.eu and we’ll get back to you.
Civil Society Asset Recovery Principles
Terminology guide
Asset theft
Asset theft is the illicit removal of public assets by a public or private official outside of the jurisdiction of that state to a third or third states. Asset theft may involve shell companies, money laundering, tax havens and the complicity of officials and financial and legal professionals.
Asset recovery
Asset recovery is the process of identifying, freezing and returning stolen assets to the country of origin. This should always be carried out with transparency and the involvement of citizens and civil society.
Civil society
Civil society has an extensive role to play in asset recovery; from helping to identify cases where public assets have been stolen, to campaigning against legal loopholes that allow for illicit financial flows, to monitoring the use of returned assets.
Beneficial ownership secrecy
A beneficial owner is a person who profits from or controls part of a company, without being listed as a legal owner. While on paper the legal owner could be a person, law firm or another company, the person profiting from the company is not listed. This is an entirely legal process in many countries. Beneficial ownership secrecy can be used by individuals to hide the true owner of a company and is used by not only corrupt public officials, but also organised crime.
Read more: Global Witness
Money Laundering
Money laundering is used by corrupt officials and other criminals to try to make ill-gotten money look like legitimate income. Usually this involves three steps: placement, where the money is introduced into the financial system: Layering, where money is moved around, often between several countries and several accounts; integration, where the ill-gotten or dirty money is brought back into the system, appearing as if it is clean, legitimate money.
Read more: Global Witness, Transparency International
Tax Haven
Tax Havens (sometimes called tax shelters, secrecy jurisdictions, international financial centres, or simply offshore) are jurisdictions that offer very low or zero taxes to non-residents who park their money there. Additionally, they offer secrecy, in various forms, combined with varying degrees of refusal to co-operate with other jurisdictions in exchanging information. Tax havens come in all shapes and sizes, from small, tropical Caribbean islands to old, aristocratic European principalities. They can even be cities or designated areas within countries.
Read more: Tax Justice Network