A Note on the 146th International Training Course:“Attacking the Proceeds of Crime: Identification, Confiscation, Recovery
and Anti-Money Laundering Measures”
Naoyuki Harada, Professor, UNAFEI

1.

Introduction
From 25 August to 1 October 2010, the United Nations Asia and Far East Institute for

the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (UNAFEI) conducted the 146thInternational Training Course.

The main theme of the Course was “Attacking the Proceedsof Crime: Identification, Confiscation, Recovery and Anti-Money Laundering Measures”.
This programme was attended by 20 participants from ten different countries, includingJapan: eleven participants were from overseas and nine from Japan. Those who participated
are all criminal justice practitioners: police officers, public prosecutors, judges, a narcotics
control officer, a criminal investigator of a national tax agency and a Coast Guard officer. In
this note, I would like to present an overview of the Course from my perspective as its
Programming Officer.
Please be reminded that the opinions expressed in this note are my own personal views.

2.

Major Points and Issues of the Main Theme
Confiscating ill-gotten gains from offenders is a particularly effective means ofsuppressing organized and economic crime, including corruption; it lets the world know that“crime does not pay”, and it stems the flow of a criminal organization’s lifeblood – its
financial resources.

Confiscation of the proceeds of crime has other desirable consequences.

Assets successfully confiscated may be utilized for victim compensation, and in corruption
cases, where a huge amount of public assets have been diverted and transferred by a corrupt
politician or high-ranking official to his or her personal accounts overseas, returning theconfiscated assets to the victim country’s national treasury can be possible. Confiscating andrepatriating the proceeds of cross-border corruption to the victim country is called “assetrecovery” and has become a matter of international concern.

The United Nations

Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), adopted in 2003 contains many provisions
regarding international co-operation to realize asset recovery.
1In addition to the UNCAC,

the “40+9 Recommendations” issued by the FATF (Financial Action Task Force on MoneyLaundering) require each country to take appropriate measures to ensure identification,tracing, freezing and confiscation of crime proceeds and to prevent and detect money
laundering often committed in the process of concealing criminal proceeds.
Notwithstanding the foregoing actions in the world, various legal and practical issues
still arise throughout the process of identification, tracing, freezing, and confiscation of crime
proceeds and their return to victims or repatriation to victim countries. Some examples ofthese issues are how can criminal justice practitioners:
identify and trace, from among a vast number of daily bank transactions, thosetransactions suspected to involve the transfer of crime proceeds;
promptly freeze identified criminal proceeds to prevent them from being concealed,dispersed or lost;
overcome the obstacle whereby, in no small number of cases, the assets whichshould rightfully be confiscated are left uncontrolled as a result of difficulties thatinvestigators frequently face in proving that “the asset was generated from thecrime” when they seek a court’s decision to approve the confiscation thereof; andencourage effective co-operation and collaboration among the criminal justiceagencies of relevant countries when seeking to repatriate any ill-gotten gains
generated from transnational crime to the victim countries, etc.

3.

Effective Countermeasures Shared in the Training Course
In the Training Course, three visiting experts from overseas offered us their knowledge

and information on various advanced approaches in different countries, and global standards
and international efforts in this field. The visiting experts were:
Ms. Jean Weld, Senior Trial Attorney, Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering
Section, the United States Department of Justice;
Mr. Daniel Thelesklaf, Executive Director, Basel Institute on Governance (aSwiss-based UN institution providing technical support to developing countries in
the improvement and enforcement of laws regarding Asset Recovery); andMr. Wayne Walsh, Head of the Mutual Legal Assistance Unit, International LawDivision, Department of Justice, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region,
The visiting experts were joined by ad-hoc lecturers from Japan, including:
Mr. Yuichiro Tachi, Chief Prosecutor, Sakai Branch, Osaka District Public
Prosecutors Office; and2

Mr. Shuichiro Hoshi, Professor, Tokyo Metropolitan University.

We then held a series of discussions in the form of Group Workshops, based upon theknowledge and experience of each participant. Through the discussions, participants wereable to share various effective measures for the identification, confiscation and recovery ofcrime proceeds, as well as detection of and punishment for money laundering. Due tolimitations of space, let me list up here only a selection of the effective countermeasures
shared during the Course:(1) To identify crime proceeds from their point of entry into the financial system, financial
institutions must verify the identity of customers and true beneficiaries when an
account is opened or when large-volume cash transactions occur. In particular, in thecase of transactions involving politicians, high-ranking officials or their families verify
the identity of customers and true beneficiaries with utmost caution in order to identify
the proceeds of corruption.

(2) Establish a Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) equipped with adequate human andmaterial resources.

Also establish a system whereby adequate information on“suspicious transactions” is provided by financial institutions, etc. to the FIU foranalysis, and then is widely shared with relevant investigative agencies.

(3) Promote not only the prompt and real-time sharing of information between the FIUs orlaw enforcement agencies (such as police and customs) of relevant countries, but also
joint investigations by the agencies of relevant countries, in order to facilitate
identification, tracing and seizure of crime proceeds.

(4) Introduce a legal system which enables more rapid freezing of crime proceeds by, forinstance, empowering police officers or public prosecutors to issue an order of
temporary freezing on such proceeds.

Also, upon the receipt of requests for freezingof crime proceeds from foreign agencies, implement rapid freezing of such proceeds asmuch as possible, without procedural restrictions, etc.

3(5) Develop an adequate legal system which allows conviction-based confiscation of crime
proceeds in criminal proceedings and take full advantage of it.

In addition, consider

enacting a law to allow non conviction-based confiscation of crime proceeds (e.g. civil
forfeiture or in rem forfeiture), which can lower the standard of proof of that “the asset
was generated from the crime” and enable confiscation of such proceeds even if anoffender cannot be prosecuted for reasons such as his or her death or flight.

Also

consider enacting a law to allow shifting to the offender the burden of proof of theorigin of alleged proceeds of crime.

(6) Push forward close international co-operation on freezing, confiscation and recovery ofcrime proceeds in cases where such proceeds are hidden across borders. In particular,
promote effective international co-operation through informal discussions among thecriminal justice agencies of relevant countries prior to any formal request for mutual
legal assistance.

4.

Conclusion
Numerous times during the Training Course, I was greatly impressed by the sincerity

and eagerness of the participants.

At the beginning of the Course, some overseas

participants seemed to have limited knowledge regarding the main theme due to theinsufficiency of legislation and inactivity of already established legal systems in their homecountries. To my delight, however, those participants undoubtedly absorbed the relevant
knowledge as they learned from the visiting experts from overseas, ad-hoc lecturers fromJapan, and other participants, and participated in the discussions during the Course, closely
examining the gap between the current legislation of their home countries and global
standards. Some participants expressed comments as follows: “Participation in the Course
offered us the first opportunity to intensely examine the legislation in our countries on
confiscation of crime proceeds and anti-money laundering. We are now aware that there aresome countries which have adopted more advanced countermeasures, and we also gained
better insight into where the focus of our criminal justice systems should be directed in thefuture. We would like to widely disseminate the information gained at UNAFEI back in ourcountries by reporting it to our superiors at work, and passing it on to our colleagues andsubordinates, or in any other way.”

I am very excited that the Course could help thosecountries make a big step forward in the betterment of their criminal justice systems.
In addition to that, the Course seemed to have allowed a cordial friendship to develop
4among all the participants during their six weeks living together at UNAFEI, which is more
precious than anything else.

I believe that international human networks among criminal

justice practitioners make a significant contribution when international co-operation throughinformal communication channels is required, as indicated in the above 3 (6).

I am

confident that the Training Course will further promote international co-operation aimed at
our shared goal, namely, the eradication of crime.
For your information, the lectures made by the visiting experts, results of the Group
Workshops, and individual presentations made by some Course participants, which are allmentioned in this note, will be included in Resource Material Series 83, to be published byUNAFEI in early 2011. This publication will also be uploaded onto the UNAFEI website.
If you are interested in any of the above, please refer to the publication or the website.

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