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[…]
African countries lose more than $70 billion a year in illicit financial flows, stemming from crime and corruption. Good news is, following the Nigeria example, more and more of them are stepping up their efforts in recovering stolen assets. Here are four examples we think are interesting to look at. Liberia Liberia’s former president Taylor Read more about Africa’s asset recovery spring?[…]
This is a translation of the blog article „Ein effektiver Kampf gegen Geldwäsche in Deutschland – genauso wichtig wie Entwicklungshilfe?!“ published on the blog of the Netzwerk Steuergerechtigkeit (Tax Justice Network) on 26 June 2019. The original article can be found here: https://www.blog-steuergerechtigkeit.de/2019/06/ein-effektiver-kampf-gegen-geldwaesche-in-deutschland-genauso-wichtig-wie-entwicklungshilfe/ By Christoph Trautvetter Germany reformed its law regulating the confiscation of Read more about An effective fight against money laundering in Germany – as important as development aid?[…]
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?[…]
This article is drawn from Clara Portela’s report for CiFAR – Sanctioning kleptocrats: An assessment of EU misappropriation sanctions written for CiFAR’s EU Sanctions Watch project. The blog was initially written for the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and can be read in full on their website. Sanctions for ‘misappropriation’ have proved their worth in forging ties Read more about Freeze, confiscate, restore? Swiss ideas for future EU sanctions[…]
“Civil society can contribute to asset recovery and more transparent processes” In 2019, CiFAR in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation researched global challenges in asset recovery and the role civil society plays to fight cross-border corruption. Here is an interview with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation with the authors, Agatino and Jackson from CIFAR, presenting Read more about CiFAR’s interview with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation[…]
This blog is part of a series monitoring the utilisation of Nigeria’s recovered assets and was prepared by Oluwatosin Fatoyinbo. Read Oluwatosin’s previous articles on Nigeria here. In our previous blogs, we outlined some of the issues of the Nigerian Cash Transfer Programme, planned to be funded with the $322 million of the Abacha loot Read more about The Nigeria “Cash Transfer Programme” takes off among challenges[…]
With the help of their corrupt networks, kleptocrats steal billions from their citizens every year. One of the tools the European Union has at its disposal to fight kleptocrats are sanctions that freeze their assets. On 6th of March, at a Brussels event co-organised by our partners at Transparency International EU, CiFAR launched EU Sanctions Watch – Read more about What are the EU misappropriation sanctions and what are we doing about them?[…]
Photo: Accent TV In our last post on Moldova, we talked about how in 2014 Moldovan kleptocrats allegedly stole over a billion dollars through a sophisticated bank fraud scheme. Things do not seem to be going in the right direction since then: the mastermind behind the fraud – Read more about Recovering the Moldovan billion[…]
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[…]