Ashraf AboArafe
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in partnership with the Financial Action Task Force for the Middle East and North Africa (MENAFATF) and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), organized a regional meeting, hosted by the Egyptian Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Combating Unit (EMLCU), to discuss the establishment of an asset recovery inter-agency network in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA-ARIN). The meeting was in the presence of H.E. Judge. Ahmed Khalil, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, EMLCU, H.E. Mr. Suliman AlJabrin, Executive Secretary, Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force (MENAFATF), Ms. Cristina Albertin, UNODC Regional Representative for MENA, and Mr. Andreas Ruepp, Head of Private Sector Development Cluster at GIZ Egypt.
Countering money laundering and terrorist financing aims to deprive criminal organizations of the illicit proceeds of their illegal activities. Criminal groups work to deploy swift means to launder money within and across national borders, therefore jurisdictions have to be as prompt in cooperating to effectively trace, seize, confiscate stolen funds and assets, and return them to their countries of origin.
H.E. Judge. Ahmed Khalil, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, EMLCU stressed at the opening of the meeting on “the importance of strengthening mechanisms for the confiscation and freezing of criminal proceeds and asset recovery in addressing financial crimes and referring to the first substantial change in the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force on the seizure, confiscation and international cooperation in this regard in 2023, which is part of the effort to urge the countries of the world to develop more effective systems for the recovery of smuggled assets and the denial of various forms of financing to criminals.”
Given the challenges facing authorities to recover assets using formal channels of cooperation, informal channels can be a valuable complementary tool to recover assets. Such an informal channel is the “Asset Recovery Inter-Agency Networks” (ARINs) created to facilitate informal cooperation for asset recovery including identifying, tracing, confiscating, freezing, and recovering illicit assets arising from all types of crimes.
HE. Mr. Suliman Al-Jabrin, Executive Secretary, MENAFATF affirmed that “the pace of organized crime, especially that which crosses national borders, has become more dynamic and complex. Official channels of cooperation to recover assets are no longer sufficient alone to track assets to recover them, which prompted the international community to develop the idea of establishing informal channels of cooperation as a complementary solution aimed at strengthening efforts in recovering stolen assets. Therefore, establishing a regional network to recover stolen assets in the MENA region, regardless of the type of crime committed, is important and complementary to the existing arrangements to confront criminals and prevent them from benefiting from and disposing of the funds resulting from their crimes.”
8 ARINs globally cover Western Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, the Caribbean, Eastern Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Central Africa. The Middle East and North Africa rest without ARIN coverage, which may negatively impact asset recovery.
“ARINs have been active players in the scene of asset recovery, supporting their members in complying with the FATF Recommendations and immediate outcomes. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the establishment of a MENA ARIN,” stated Ms. Cristina Albertin, UNODC Regional Representative for MENA.
“I reaffirm the German government’s strong commitment to support Member States in the efforts in the fight against money laundering and countering financing of terrorism (….) Statistics are showing that developing countries lose billions each year through bribery, misappropriation of funds, or other corrupt practices (….) We can address this by working faster and more effectively together through innovative tools such as ARINs,” Mr. Andreas Ruepp, Head of the Private Sector Development Cluster at GIZ Egypt said at the meeting.
The regional meeting aims to introduce the relevant FATF recommendations and guidelines and good practices in the field of asset tracing, recovery, and relevant international cooperation, view the different arrangements/models from a selection of ARINs located around the world, discuss the structure, governance mechanisms and legal requirements related to the establishment of ARINs, agree on the way forward to the general meeting and subsequent steps, amongst other vital subjects.
The meeting brought together more than 60 representatives from Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
