India pushes faster confiscation, return of crime proceeds under Asset Recovery Interagency Network, Asia Pacific presidency

India called for faster cross-border asset recovery and greater focus on the confiscation and return of proceeds of crime as it hosted the 11th ARIN-AP Annual General Meeting in New Delhi. Under its 2026 presidency, the ED proposed speeding up responses to requests and ensuring completion of asset recovery cases.

India on Monday called for faster cross-border asset recovery and greater focus on the actual confiscation and return of proceeds of crime as it hosted the 11th Annual General Meeting of the Asset Recovery Interagency Network, Asia Pacific (ARIN-AP) in New Delhi. The Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is India's nodal agency for ARIN-AP, proposed under the country's 2026 presidency that the network focus on two priorities: speeding up responses to requests and ensuring completion of asset recovery cases.

Addressing the inaugural session, ED Director Rahul Navin said asset recovery involves tracing, securing, confiscation, management and return, and a case can fail at any of these stages. He noted that while international cooperation is strongest in the early stages, cross-border confiscation, enforcement of foreign orders and repatriation are areas where cases often slow down.

The ED Director proposed that, where members are able to share such information, ARIN-AP should also track the number of cases in which assets were actually confiscated and returned following cooperation through the network. He said practitioners are rightly cautious while dealing with different legal systems, but some obstacles may be bureaucratic rather than genuine legal impediments.

Navin urged members to examine whether difficulties in individual cases are legally necessary or can be addressed through a different approach. The four-day meeting, being held from September 28 to October 1, brings together delegations from member jurisdictions and observer organisations, besides representatives of Indian agencies.

ARIN-AP is an informal network of law enforcement and judicial contact points engaged in recovering proceeds of crime in the Asia-Pacific region. Launched in South Korea in November 2013, it facilitates direct and rapid exchange of information and good practices, including among jurisdictions that do not have a mutual legal assistance treaty. The network currently has 32 member jurisdictions and 10 observers, including INTERPOL, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the World Bank.

India was inducted into the ARIN-AP Steering Group at the 2024 Sydney AGM and was entrusted with the presidency for 2026. This is the first time India is hosting the network's annual meeting. The programme covers the entire asset recovery cycle, including cross-border tracing, beneficial ownership information, freezing of virtual assets, non-conviction-based confiscation, management of confiscated assets and restitution and return of assets to victims.

The meeting is expected to strengthen cooperation among contact points and promote faster informal information exchange alongside formal mutual legal assistance mechanisms. (ANI)