Financial Crime World

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Asset Recovery International Network (ARIN) Functioning: Key Insights

The Asset Recovery International Network (ARIN) plays a crucial role in international cooperation against proceeds of crime. This article summarizes key points related to statistics, confidentiality, timelines, membership criteria, steering groups, leadership, country representatives, funding, and secretariat roles.

Statistics

  • There are no specific criteria for countries to meet for entry into ARINs.
  • Countries are not held accountable for submitting up-to-date legislation and information on civil asset forfeiture laws.
  • Response times can stretch far beyond reasonable amounts, hindering progress or success of asset tracing or recovery cases.

Confidentiality and Timelines

  • ARINs handle requests in a confidential manner.
  • However, countries often do not respect timelines for sharing information and providing feedback.

Membership Criteria

  • No specific criteria are mentioned for approving membership or excluding members involved in delinquency or misuse of information-sharing mechanisms.

Steering Groups and Leadership

  • Steering groups are established in ARINs, with varying levels of formality.
  • Members elect a rotating presidency or chair on an annual or bi-annual basis.
  • Exceptionally, RRAG (Latin America’s ARIN) is governed by the guidelines and principles approved by GAFILAT.

Country Representatives

  • Manuals require each member country to put forth two to three relevant persons in law enforcement and asset recovery offices.
  • However, contact points and their relevance vary from one country to another.
  • Countries often do not provide sufficient or adequate contact points, particularly for lower-capacity jurisdictions.

Funding

  • ARIN manuals do not specify funding requirements.
  • Financing is generally ad hoc or dependent on third-party contributions (in-kind and other).

Secretariat Roles and Responsibilities

  • Manuals include roles and responsibilities of the secretariat, but specifics are not provided in the text.