Brazil wants the United Nations assistance to recover assets

August 10, 2010 - Brazil wants to be the first country to donate a portion of assets recovered abroad to the United Nations. The announcement was made by the national secretary of Justice, Pedro Vieira Abramovay, in an interview to O Estado de São Paulo daily newspaper.

According to the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime, in the process of assets recovery, the money recovered by the country can be assigned to the UN for international technical cooperation projects promoted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC.

The Brazilian proposal is to institutionalize this practice and making the UN function as an agent of persuasion to expedite the repatriation of resources. Brazil currently has $3 billion frozen abroad. Most of these resources come from capital flight, corruption, drug trafficking and crimes against the national financial system. The blocking of resources is one of the most important tools in fighting money laundering linked to such crimes, but the recovery of these resources by the country of origin is still a challenge. That's because although it is blocked, the money can be used to promote credit in the country. Hence the importance of involving the United Nations in convincing countries to repatriate those resources.

Since it was established, the Department of Assets Recovery and International Legal Cooperation, Brazil has repatriated only $ 2.6 million related to the Banestado case. Among the main countries organized crime looks for money laundering are the United States, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Cayman Islands, France, Luxembourg, Uruguay, Bahamas and China. See the interview of the national secretary of Justice, Pedro Vieira Abramovay, to the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo.

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