Financial Action Task Force publishes asset recovery guidance and best practices to strengthen confiscation outcomes

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has published Asset Recovery Guidance and Best Practices to help policymakers and practitioners intensify efforts to trace, secure, confiscate and return criminal proceeds. The handbook is positioned as practical support for implementing the strengthened FATF Recommendations on asset recovery agreed in 2023, against a backdrop of low global confiscation rates and FATF findings that over 80% of jurisdictions operate at low or moderate effectiveness. The guidance spans modern financial investigations, rapid asset securing, safeguarding rights and using recovered funds to compensate victims. It includes more than 85 case examples and techniques across investigative and legal phases, including blockchain analysis admitted as court evidence in a US case tracing over USD 400 million in illicit transactions, a Swiss case ordering confiscation of over CHF 313 million with funds directed to benefit affected populations, and examples of repurposing confiscated assets or proceeds for victim recovery and social purposes. Eight chapters are targeted at audiences ranging from policymakers, law enforcement and judicial authorities to asset managers, with trainers, technical assistance providers, the private sector and civil society also identified as potential users. FATF calls on jurisdictions to treat asset recovery as a policy and operational priority and to use the guidance to increase uptake of the updated standards and improve confiscation results.