Algeria Demands International Cooperation for Recovering Looted Wealth
The Algerian government has renewed its calls on European countries and foreign partners for assistance in recovering the looted and smuggled funds that have been transferred abroad by financial cartel figures and governmental officials over the past two decades.
Prime Minister of Algeria, Ayman bin Abdul Rahman, during the launch of the national strategy for transparency and prevention and combating of corruption, urged “all countries and foreign partners to assist in recovering the smuggled funds.” He added: “It is not fair for these countries and entities to demand us to combat corruption and bribery, while they do not assist us in recovering the smuggled funds, and sometimes provide safe havens for these funds.”
Rahman continues: “We renew the request from all these entities and countries that have benefited from the domiciliation of these smuggled funds, to assist us in recovering them in accordance with the mechanism that allows us and other peoples to benefit from the financial resources that were the product of corruption and other transactions.” The Algerian official explains the existence of reluctance and procrastination by European countries, especially in cooperating with Algeria to uncover the location and routes of the smuggled funds and properties acquired by them.
The value of the funds that were smuggled abroad from Algeria, especially in the recent period of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s rule, is unknown.
In December of the past year, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune revealed that “there are vast amounts of money that have been smuggled over a period of 10 to 12 years, the full extent of which we do not know. There are funds deposited in safes, especially in Switzerland and Luxembourg and countries that represent tax havens, we seek to recover as much as possible,” adding that “there is great cooperation from European countries, and they have expressed their readiness to investigate and return the funds to Algeria according to legal conditions, including real estate and five-star hotels”.
In the past few months, Algeria has sent judicial delegations to several countries, including France, Spain, Switzerland, and Belgium, where officials and businessmen have smuggled money to them, and bought properties and assets there, to request cooperation in identifying and recovering the properties from the proceeds of the smuggled funds. The Minister of Justice, Abdel Rashid Tabi, has visited countries like France, Spain, Lebanon, and the UAE, where a series of judicial cooperation agreements between the countries have been updated, allowing her to initiate requests to return looted money.
In another context, the Algerian Prime Minister affirmed his country’s commitment to preventing corruption and fighting it and protecting the national economy from all manipulations, where the government is working to ensure transparency in managing public money.
The Algerian official considered that “corruption is a phenomenon that transcends countries and requires the exchange of experiences between different countries and organizations that are active in this context, and therefore Algeria has enhanced its presence in the international bodies concerned with combating corruption”.
Rahman confirmed that the national strategy to combat corruption, which was formulated after national and international consultations, and the use of experiences from countries that have experiences in this field, “will become a binding document for all parties, and the government is committed to supporting and accompanying the authority to work on implementing this strategy”.
