Ukrainian law enforcers' access to international databases to facilitate recovery of corrupt assets
Ukrainian law enforcement agencies must be granted access to international databases that will let them identify property abroad and share information with those agencies that investigate related cases, director of the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) Artem Sytnyk has said.
"There is much property in Ukraine, but it is even more of it abroad, and it has not been included in e-declarations. This creates the greatest challenge to the seizure of such property," Sytnyk said at the Third Asset Recovery Conference in Kyiv, the NABU press service reported on Friday.
According to him, the lack of a common database of foreign-registered property belonging to persons under investigation by NABU complicates the search and makes it time-consuming.
Currently, it is the State Financial Monitoring Service, which receives information from abroad in response to international legal requirements, which help NABU identify the property outside Ukraine. Such communication usually takes more than several months.
As an example, Sytnyk cited a case when EUR 7 million had been seized in Latvia as part of a gas case which Member of Parliament Oleksandr Onyschenko was involved in. His assets were frozen only after first arrests in his case.
"Another important step for the recovery of stolen assets is an agreement on cooperation with Europol, which has recently been signed. NABU is mentioned there as a subject that may directly send inquiries.
It is also important that a National Agency of Ukraine for the identification, investigation and management of assets could start work as quickly as possible, he added.
NABU reported that UAH 433.6 million, $79.79 million, and EUR 7.1 million had been seized as of December 1, 2016, as part of criminal cases investigated by NABU agents.
Other seized assets were securities worth $75.5 million, 228 units of agricultural machinery and components, one integrated property complex, 53 non-residential premises, 41 vehicles, 101 plots of land, 32 houses and households, 52 apartments, gold bullion, jewelry, appliances.
