Anti-Money Laundering, Counter-Terrorist Financing and International Legal Cooperation: Risks in Extradition, International Search and Asset-Freezing Cases
This report by Observatoire ARGA and ARGA Atlas examines how anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing mechanisms, originally designed to protect the international financial system, may operate together with criminal prosecution, international search, extradition procedures and asset-freezing measures. It focuses on situations in which financial monitoring, banking compliance and inter-state information exchange lead to serious restrictions on human rights, property interests and business reputation before guilt has been established by a court.
The authors show how a single domestic criminal case involving financial allegations may rapidly develop into a cross-border system of restrictions: bank account freezes, exchanges between financial intelligence units, mutual legal assistance requests, asset freezes, international alerts and extradition-related detention. Particular concern arises where the underlying prosecution shows signs of selectivity, corporate conflict, political motivation, weak judicial control or disproportionate interim measures.
The report identifies key risks: automatic treatment of financial allegations as high-risk indicators, confidential information exchange, transfer of defects from the national process into other jurisdictions, financial isolation without judicial review, use of extradition and international search as instruments of pressure, and the persistence of adverse risk profiles after the original case has been discontinued or weakened.
The report’s central conclusion is that international mechanisms for combating financial crime must not be applied automatically. Their use requires assessment of the quality of the underlying criminal process, respect for defense rights, proportionality of measures, independence of judicial control and the risk of abuse of international legal cooperation.
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