Organised crime
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23 Apr 2025
BlogKeeping Europe safe means keeping up with corruption and financial crime threats
Asset Recovery
2 Sep 2022
NewsCryptocurrencies key to tackling organised crime – Europol and Basel Institute on Governance
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31 Mar 2020
BlogMind the gap: building a bridge between research and practice to better fight illegal wildlife trade
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Publications
High-level Corruption: an Analysis of Schemes, Costs and of Policy Recommendations
Policy Brief of Project FALCON
Corruption affects communities worldwide. It undermines civil, political and economic rights, erodes trust in institutions and impedes economic progress. A new Policy Brief by the FALCON (Fight Against Large-scale Corruption and Organised Crime Networks) project unveils new insights in the fight against high-level corruption.
It provides an in-depth examination of corruption schemes and their societal impacts, alongside actionable policy recommendations to enhance anti-corruption efforts across Europe. The analysis offers valuable resources for policymakers, law enforcement and legal professionals.
Within the FALCON project, the findings in the Policy Brief are being used to develop data-driven tools that enhance the analysis of corruption and help combat it more effectively.
The Basel Institute on Governance is an associated partner of the FALCON project. Claudia Baez Camargo and Jacopo Costa have contributed to the Policy Brief, covering the aspect of border corruption specifically and providing the policy recommendations for all four corruption domains analysed by FALCON.
FALCON is funded under the Horizon Europe Framework Program Grant Agreement ID 101121281. The Basel Institute on Governance receives funding from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).
Quick Guide 38: Border corruption
Border corruption – defined simply as an illegal exchange between border officials and private actors – is a complex phenomenon with serious impacts on safety, health and security. And stopping it isn’t as easy as just stepping up enforcement.
This Quick Guide covers the what, who and why of border corruption. It is based on deep research for the EU-funded FALCON project. More such research is needed to help design effective strategies to prevent corruption from undermining border security.
About this Quick Guide
You are free to share and republish this work under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 Licence. It is part of the Basel Institute on Governance Quick Guide series, ISSN 2673-5229.
Quick Guide 36: Corruption and security
How does corruption threaten national and international security, both directly and indirectly? Can viewing it through the lens of power offer deeper insights? And what might we achieve by framing corruption as a security concern?
This quick guide gives a short introduction to this complex issue as part of a two-part series on corruption, security and strategic corruption.
About this Quick Guide
You are free to share and republish this work under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 Licence. It is part of the Basel Institute on Governance Quick Guide series, ISSN 2673-5229.
Working Paper 54: Targeting illicit wealth through non-conviction based forfeiture: Identifying human rights and other standards for Latin America
This Working Paper explores the wide variety of non-conviction based (NCB) forfeiture laws in Latin America, with a special focus on the region’s predominant model, Extinción de dominio.
It argues that NCB forfeiture legislation, which allows for the recovery of stolen assets outside of criminal proceedings, can contribute significantly to a state’s criminal policy response to rampant economic and organised crime.
The paper emphasises the importance of critically reviewing and harmonising domestic practices of NCB forfeiture around emerging standards, so that they can reach their large potential in asset recovery. Ensuring their alignment with international human rights and other recognised norms and procedural rules ultimately builds trust, lends legitimacy and fosters judicial cooperation in international NCB forfeiture cases.
About this report
The paper is based on experience gained through the Basel Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR), which since 2006 has supported partner countries in investigating, prosecuting and recovering assets arising from grand corruption and other crimes.
This paper is published as part of the Basel Institute on Governance Working Paper series, ISSN: 2624-9650. You may share or republish the Working Paper under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
Suggested citation: Solórzano, Oscar. 2024. ‘Targeting illicit wealth through non-conviction based forfeiture: Identifying human rights and other standards for Latin America.’ Working Paper 54, Basel Institute on Governance. Available at: baselgovernance.org/publications/wp-54.
Organisational forms of corruption networks: the Odebrecht-Toledo case
Actors in grand corruption schemes often conspire and deliberately create sophisticated networks to extract huge amounts of public resources from government systems. They hide such conspiracies behind hybrid formal/informal arrangements.
Using a mixed methods approach, this study investigates the corruption scheme initiated by former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo and the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht Group. We argue that separating the networks of the client (Odebrecht) and the agent (Toledo) sides provides analytical leverage for studying complex corrupt arrangements.
We found that the organisational forms designed by corrupt actors on either side were essential to ensuring the secret and safe operation of the network. Introducing the concept of organisational form into corruption research helps better understand the nature of these networks. We also found that different parts of the networks are shaped by different types of corruption. The article concludes with implications for practice.
