In my research I have found plenty of literature on the causes and consequences of corruption and kleptocratic regimes. However, there is painfully little advice available for countries trying to recover the billions stolen by their dictators, for example Egypt trying to trace and recover money stolen by the Mubarak family, Indonesia with Suharto, Nigeria with Sani Abacha, etc. In the latter case, Swiss banks have now apparently offered to return $380 million of Nigeria's money, which sounds good but is really only a cheap PR stunt given that Abacha stole at least 2 and probably closer to 5 billion dollars from his country.
The attached handbook may help you a bite in your research. And this link will guide you for more publication about stolen assets recovery.
https://star.worldbank.org/star/?q=publications&keys=&sort_by=field_date_value&sort_order=DESC&items_per_page=20
Well, it's a study on the countries the stolen assets went to. But if you ask there they will tell you it's private property that has been already taxed, especially in the U.S. and UK.
Nigeria has a 0,9 per cent share in the world's GDP but only 0,1 per cent share in wealth. Where is the difference? In Zurich, London, Paris, New York.
To recover the money there had to be a working international law. The U.S. are rejecting any kind of law that covers the U.S. itself.
Dear Frank,
I think the solution of this common trouble would be a social and mutual task of thinking and ethical people. The trouble is that dictators can be removed only with force. Thus, this is not a scientific question. It seems to me that many ignorant landsmen of dictators are satisfied with their despot.
Contact Cherif Bassiouni or Dr. Pasqua at the Istituto Superiore Internazionale di Scienze Criminali (ISISC). They have a great deal of experience in this area and will undoubtedly be able to help.
Here's the website: http://www.isisc.org/
Thank you, Ashley, this is a good idea. I know both gentlemen personally and was in fact at a conference at ISISC in December...
András, I share your frustration. However, in the last 20 years or so, we have indeed a number of cases where countries have tried to recover the money stolen by their former dictators. But their success was very limited. If anything, they were able to recover maybe 10% of the amounts that went missing. Of course, we all know how the loot is being hidden. Very few, if any, of these kleptocrats open bank accounts in Switzerland in their own name. Instead, they create a system of shell companies that makes it hard to track who are the real owners of the funds. Furthermore, as we saw in Egypt with the sons of President Mubarak and we can see in many cases in China, the family members of the dictators engage in a range of legitimate businesses and "earn" the money that way. Everybody knows that they became phenomenally wealthy not because of their superior entrepreneurial skills but because of the family connection that secured the license and the contract and the potent partners every time. But in effect this all makes it hard to put a finger on actual sums in specific bank accounts and show that the money was stolen from the people... This is precisely where I want to learn more and see whether we may be able to put together some recommendations or best practice guidelines for countries seeking to recover stolen assets...
The above is so pertinent. THe EU has been trying to work out rules and controls but Luxemburg is one of the worst offenders. Ireland is good at tax avoidance rather than evasion, and the Channel Islands, which are not even in the UK, are good at one only, perhaps. I assume the EU has had its reserachers on all this so look up their legal site and also the Commission,
I don't see that a study is required for how to recover stolen money because the basic course of action is simple. You get a hold of the culprit and hold his feet to the fire until he reveals where the money is and signs the necessary authorization to return it to the government of the victim-country. You would better spend your time looking for studies on how to effectively "hold his feet to the fire". If there are moral issues with this they could translate into limits on methods used.
Robert, I think the recent case of Egypt shows how and why this does not work. Although Mubarak and both of his sons were initially convicted to lengthy prison sentences, it did not help the country in recovering significant amounts of stolen money. Mubarak was perfectly willing to take the fall to protect his family and their fortunes.
Although I would not always and categorically rule out torture as a means of obtaining information - the ticking bomb scenario quickly gets personal when one's own family members are among the potential victims - I do not subscribe to the idea that we should torture former dictators, let alone their family members, in order to recover stolen assets. That would ultimately put us on the same level as the crooks we are trying to overcome.
However, I do share the concerns voiced by other contributors to this discussion, namely that our Western banks are as much to blame for the problem as the kleptocrats in the developing world. Just look which financial institutions are typically involved in these transactions. You will rarely find names like the Home Loan and Savings Bank of Ouagadougou. Much more likely you will come across banks like Barclays, Standard Bank, Credit Suisse, HSBC, etc. Kari mentioned the Channel Islands. That is only the tip of the iceberg, however. It does not take sophisticated tools to find hundreds if not thousands of companies offering to establish and manage shell companies with nominee shareholders out of territories like Gibraltar, the British Virgin Islands (BVI), the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, etc. And one thing all of these territories have in common is the Union Jack flying over their Government Houses, proudly showing their protection by the British crown.
Years ago, when I trained Eastern European prosecutors in the detection of money laundering schemes, I estimated that Britain collects at least 6 billion Euros in stamp and other fees alone from companies operating out of one of its territories although they are wholly owned by foreigners who neither live nor declare their taxes in the UK. You can multiply this figure several times to account for the influx of money necessary to pay all the management companies, accountants, tax advisors etc.
The bottom line is that we could very well and effectively combat the large scale plunder of the developing nations if only we implemented real and effective rules for ethical and transparent management for all of our financial institutions at all of their places of business. The standard excuse for not doing so is the argument that the funds would simply move elsewhere if we should curb down on illegal practices in these territories. This is not persuasive, however, since "elsewhere" would eventually have to be Ouagadougou and the kleptocrats, shrewd businessmen as they are, would not want to entrust their hard stolen assets to such dubious places. The lure of the British protectorates is precisely the combination of safety, trustworthiness, and rule of law, with near perfect confidentiality.
This cycle has to be broken if we want to address the underlying problems. However, this does not answer my question how the developing countries can recover more of their assets until we manage to fix the consensual cycle of plunder involving our multinational financial institutions and the ruthless dictators of the 3rd world, in particular since a comprehensive solution may still take a while...
As I said, the role of morality is to limit how and to what extent a subject is persuaded to reveal information. In any case, the facts of the matter are that the culprit knows where the stolen loot is stashed and he/she is the key to getting it back. Don't forget that we are dealing with a thief here- someone who stole a large amount of money from the people of his/her country. Blaming banks or other organizations is only obfuscating the problem.
Robert, I have no problem putting kleptocrats in jail for life and offering them a conversion of the sentence - for example into life-long house arrest - if they help with the repatriation of the bulk of the money they stole. However, I doubt that torture is the way to go...
At fault are the banks and the leaders both. I find that quite a few of the EU's OCTs not just British ones stash away the ill gotten gains of others. THe Brits are the worst it is true. THis is because while even the French are now saying they cannot keep bailing out their overseas, the Brits want theirs to pay their own way. the EU has managed to impose a few controls but the British overseas flaunt their micro nationalism to argue that they are not colonies and will not stand for London's interference. It is quite a battle for London to navigate its wish to hang on the bits , be a good EU member and yet not pay for the overseas.
As you mention about Indonesia, with Soeharto cases, I would like to give you some comments about it. First of all it was a lack of Indonesian's Government and also included the law of the case. But nowadays in Indonesia we do have the Corruption Eradication Commission, Indonesian Corrupt Watch, etc which was established to fight this matter. And how Indonesia dealed with this crisis? I am not an economic expert one, but I think Indonesia depends on the IMF fund. Means Indonesian have much loan to pay after recover our crisis because of this corruption. Beside that, many investor came to our country to make investment. From this side, Indonesia also gain something to regain its economy. The stolen money from the corruptor? I think in some cases the stolen money was back, but not much as we lost that money especially from Soeharto's era. The example of this case can you see in the link (sorry but its in Indonesian), that one corruptor Djoko Susilo was caught for his crime for 18 Million Dollars (that was already back in the Bank of Indoensia).
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1049007802001768
http://www.nst.com.my/node/53115
Corry, your comment is a case on point. The Suharto family, by many accounts, holds the world record in embezzlement and corruption, with an estimated amount of 35 to 70 billion USD stolen from Indonesia over the years. I don't think any of that money has been returned and instead, we are talking about 18 million USD possibly embezzled by Djoko Susilo. That is 0.3 per mil of the mid point of the amount stolen by Suharto...
Just to ask? Can stolen traditional or indigenous knowledge benefits be reimbursed to traditional knowledge holders or atleast their concerned states. What scale can be used?
You might be interested in Corruption and human rights law in Africa, by Kolawole Olaniyan (Oxford and Portland, Oregon: Hart Publishing, 2014). It is available as an ebook.
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