In autumn 2019, CIFAR began looking once again into the issue of the assets alleged to have been stolen by the former President of Yemen – Ali Abdallah Saleh – and frozen under a 2014 UN Security Council Resolution. These assets were the subject of a former report by CiFAR, that attempted to learn whether Read more about Yemen’s Stolen Assets[…]
The European Court of Justice in its decision of the 11 July 2019 annulled the 2014-2018 EU sanctions that had been in force to freeze the assets of several high-ranking former Ukrainian officials since 2013, including those of former president Yanukovych. These asset freezes had been put in place after the Ukrainian revolution to support Read more about The European Court of Justice annuls Ukrainian sanctions – what now?[…]
One and a half years ago, CiFAR launched its first project with young, investigative journalists – Investigate the Mediterranean – supported by GIZ. This project was ambitious: to train young journalists who might have had no experience in investigations, let alone financial crime investigations, to bring them together with peers from North Africa and Europe, Read more about Investigating cross-border corruption 101[…]
The 1MDB scandal is the principle asset recovery case in Malaysia at the moment and for good reason: it involves a lot of money: potentially up to US $4.5 billion, it alleges wrongdoing at the highest levels, with former Prime Minister Najib at the centre of the allegations, and it involves multiple jurisdictions. The scope Read more about 1MDB is moving forward, but it’s far from the end of the story[…]
Asset recovery is often between rich Western states that harbour illicit wealth and poorer countries rebuilding after a change in regime or dealing with a large corruption scandal whose former leaders have stolen public funds. It is not always the case though, with recovery taking place regularly on the basis of organized crime between different Read more about Returning to Germany: East German cash and Swiss Banks[…]
Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a GDP of US$11 billion in 2016. In the last year a US$2 billion case has embroiled the country and has the potential for far reaching consequences. The Hidden Debt case involved a confidential US$2 billion loan from the UK branches of the Swiss Bank Read more about Mozambique: The Hidden Debt Case[…]
This week, the Obiang case which took place in France in 2017 and resulted in the son of the President of Equatorial Guinea being given a suspended jail sentence, the confiscation of assets worth €107 million and a €30 million fine, goes in front of the International Court of Justice. What is the International Court Read more about Obiang at the International Court of Justice[…]
It’s seven years ago today the Egyptian revolution, with all its hope and potential, its demand for justice and accountability, began. A key component of that revolution was the demand for an end to corruption and a reckoning for the grand corruption that had taken place under the former regime, not least the prosecution and Read more about Time’s up, but not for us.[…]
Ali Abdallah Saleh is dead – what happens to his assets now? On the 4 December it was widely reported that the former President of Yemen, Ali Abdallah Saleh, had been killed in fighting with the Houti militia. Born in Sanaa’, much of Yemen’s recent history has been bound up with former President Saleh. With Read more about Yemen’s frozen assets[…]
The ongoing case of asset recovery and Uzbekistan Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of the former President of Uzbekistan and once the international face of her father’s regime, was put under house arrest in 2014 and is now the subject of court cases from the US to the Netherlands and Switzerland over the alleged US $1 Read more about Karimova, corruption and communications[…]