ARINSA ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2015
The ARINSA Annual General Meeting held in Pretoria, South Africa from 2 to 3 July was a mind blowing experience for the approximately 60 members from 14 countries who attended.
Adv. Shaun Abrahams, the recently appointed National Director of Public Prosecutions of South Africa gave the opening address highlighting the significance the ARINSA network has in putting prosecutors and investigators in contact with counterparts in member countries and with colleagues in the other asset recovery networks worldwide.
Adv Abrahams noted that "Asset forfeiture is a major weapon against crime with the major advantage that it begins to take the profit out of crime and use it to fight the crime”. Adv. Abrahams added that to effectively deal with crime, networks like ARINSA need to be established and to be fully operational.
Frederic Raffray, the president of the Camden Asset Recovery Inter-Agency Network, (CARIN) added that they are proud to be associated with ARINSA and that continuous learning from each other's experiences was key to growth of all networks.
The AGM welcomed Angola, Madagascar and, Mozambique to the meeting and it was noted that Seychelles had expressed an interest in joining ARINSA.
The new ARINSA website, https://arinsa.org was launched and created a lot of interest. This tool will be essential in seizing the proceeds of crime in Africa.
Member states shared experiences and discussed on best practices, possible areas of improvements, setting up Asset Forfeiture Units and the sustainability of the network.
Presentations were also made by Western Union, MoneyGram and TRAFFIC detailing the trends on illegal financial transfers and wild life crime.
Tofik Murshudlu, UNODC Section Chief in Vienna, gave closing remarks and thanked all present for all the hard work and encouraged the spirit of information sharing with other networks.