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[…]
Tunisia’s parliament has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a controversial law granting “reconciliation” to public officials involved in corruption who served in government during the rule of the autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali. This law, which for many critics is simply an amnesty for criminals and a way to rehabilitate Ben Ali’s allies back into Read more about Is Tunisia reconciliating with the corrupt?[…]
More than a decade has past since Vladimiro Montesinos, head of Peru’s intelligence service and advisor to President Fujimori, received his first sentence for what would expand to be more than 30 convictions related to corruption. Montesinos, known as President Fujimori’s “Rasputin,” was charged for embezzlement, influence peddling, bribery and involvement in a death squad, Read more about Montesinos is gone, but has Peru recovered all the money he stole?[…]
One could argue that former Ukrainian president Yanukovych is a model case for major public asset theft, how to profit from the secrecy of the global financial system and on the failures and hurdles in recovering those assets. Money, money, money, money While credible estimates are as always difficult, if not impossible to make, it Read more about A model case of public asset theft?[…]
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[…]
Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, better known as Teodorin, is the son of the dictator of Equatorial Guinea, a country with vast oil revenues and endemic poverty. 70% of Equatorial Guinea’s citizens live on just $1 a day Teodorin’s father, President Obiang, not only installed his eldest son as minister of forestry; he also granted him Read more about The spoiled kid who loots Equatorial Guinea[…]
Civil society’s work to recover stolen assets is dominated by technical topics—from mutual legal assistance and secrecy jurisdictions, to beneficial ownership. Due to the complex nature of these technicalities, organisations that lead asset recovery efforts have mostly failed to engage the public and effectively transform angry citizens into an engaged citizenry. Civil society has an Read more about What Civil Society Can Do To Recover Assets[…]
“A robust international framework for quick restitution of stolen assets is long overdue” Yemi Osinbajo, Vice President of Nigeria at the OECD, 30 March 2017. Last week we were at the OECD for the 2017 Global Anti-Corruption and Integrity Forum, an event billed as a follow-on to the 2016 London Anti-Corruption Conference and bringing together Read more about A new framework for asset recovery?[…]
After Hosni Mubarak was released from prison in March 2016 and the EU extended for another year the freeze of his and his family’s assets, what will happen to his billions? CiFAR had a chat with the French news outlet BFM Business. You can read the interview in French at this link. Read more about The future of Mubarak’s assets[…]