Make sure that crime does not pay: UK and Romania’s developing partnership on asset recovery

I’m continuing my section of guest bloggers with Felicia Alexandru, our Senior Political Officer. I invited Felicia to talk about a recent project she worked on, organising a seminar on asset recovery, set up in partnership with the Romanian Ministry of Justice and also the National Anticorruption Directorate. Let’s find out more!

Romania and the UK already enjoy a strong relationship on anti-corruption and justice reform. This has evolved over the last two years to our mutual benefit, and we are now working to strengthen our cooperation on the confiscation of criminals’ assets.

Improving instruments for asset recovery is crucial. Confiscation is an effective way of fighting crime and a strong deterrent, and the UK has a stake in this. Our countries have a history of tackling together cross border crime and this will help us improve cooperation and lead to concrete results in recovering criminal assets. Secondly, this is significant for improving the business climate in Romania. Our companies will benefit from a more stable,
predictable judiciary where Court orders are enforced and criminals’ profits are sent back to the legal economy.

We think there are encouraging steps on asset recovery in Romania, and the recent adoption of the extended confiscation amendment to the Criminal Code is the most important. This shows that there is positive momentum: Romania is developing its capability to effectively target profits of crime and we want to see more of that.

I strongly believe that the UK is well placed to support Romania in this crucial task. The UK has a long track record of recovering criminal money as it hosts one of the global financial centres in the City of London. In the United Kingdom the internal criminal economy is said to have reached £2.5 billion in 2010, while around £200 million are recovered annually.

This year we have decided to work with the Ministry of Justice and the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) to strengthen the technical and operational capacity on asset recovery. Between 5 and 8 March, two practitioners from the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency travelled to Romania to deliver presentations on the UK’s experience to deal with on money laundering cases and cross-border criminal activity.

I was tasked with facilitating the event. Around 40 judges, prosecutors, police officers and financial investigators took part in the two workshops in Bucharest and Craiova, learning about how the UK improved dramatically their asset recovery regime over the last ten years and how financial investigations are being carried out. Both for us at the British Embassy and for the two experts, going out of Bucharest for the second event made a huge difference. We had the chance to meet a group of highly respected and dedicated people in Craiova that were really keen to get more exposure to international expertise.

We really look forward to working closely with the Romanian authorities on asset recovery. It will take time, and sustained effort to put together a strong and effective asset recovery mechanism. But it is worth it – the most effective deterrent against a criminal is to make sure that crime doesn’t pay.

Felicia Alexandru
Senior Political Officer
British Embassy Bucharest

Felicia is working as Senior Political officer in the British Embassy and her main responsibilities include justice reform and anti-corruption as well as EU policy work.