Minister of Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina welcomes the development of Asset Recovery Strategic Framework in FBIH

3-5 October 2022, Neum, Bosnia and Herzegovina: The working group for the development of the Asset Recovery Strategy of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) met in Neum to draft the first Asset Recovery Strategy for the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. On this occasion, the practitioners from the Ministry of Justice of FBiH, FBiH Agency for Management of Seized Assets, state prosecutor’s office, police, financial investigation unit, and academia discussed the proposal for the Strategy for confiscation of property benefits obtained through criminal offenses in FBIH as well as the related Action Plan.

The efforts to strengthen the legal and strategic framework and build the capacity of FBiH‘s institutions to effectively conduct financial investigations and asset recovery were welcomed by the Minister of Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dr. Josip Grubeša, who opened the event and recognized this activity as a big step forward in the fight against organized crime and illicit financial flows.

For a stronger regional cooperation and exchange of best practices, UNODC facilitated the participation of practitioners from North Macedonia, who presented the country‘s newly adopted Strategy for Asset Recovery and Combating Money Laundering and shared their experiences in monitoring the strategy implementation.

The working group meeting was conducted as part of the Action Plan signed in August 2022 between the FBIH Agency for Management of Seized Assets and UNODC, agreeing on technical assistance activities to improve asset recovery processes until the end of 2022. The event was made possible thanks to the generous support of the UK government.

This activity contributes to SDG 16, particularly Target 16.4 to significantly reduce illicit financial and arms flows, strengthen the recovery and return of stolen assets and combat all forms of organized crime.

https://sdg-tracker.org/peace-justice#targets