Tracking the international proceeds of corruption and the challenges of national boundaries and national agencies: the UK example

Corruption is a major inhibitor to economic growth, discouraging to domestic and foreign investment and destabilizing of governments. Unsurprisingly, international attention has intensified in recent years with global initiatives to counter corruption and address the proceeds of corruption. These have placed requirements upon national governments to increase transparency, reducing opportunities for use of the legitimate legal and financial infrastructure to disguise and move the proceeds of corruption. This paper reviews the boundaries at national and agency level that can create challenges for those agencies tasked with investigating and returning the proceeds of corruption to the countries from which they came. The paper considers the mechanisms that the agencies in a returning country—the UK—have at their disposal and whether national policy changes can affect their focus and operation. Specifically it reviews the role and future of the International Corruption Unit of the National Crime Agency.Following from the highly publicised anti-corruption summit hosted by the Cameron government in 2016, the UK has positioned itself at the forefront of anti-corruption initiatives. Recognizing that corruption is as much an issue for the UK as for victim countries, the UK initiated a unique response model in its International Corruption Unit. However, the proceeds of corruption continue to find their way into the London property market, hence recent initiatives to open up ownership registries. The need to ‘respond’, shortens timeframes, driving resource allocation towards ‘quick wins’. Tracking and recovering the proceeds of corruption that may have moved across multiple jurisdictions is a slow business. The failure to evidence ‘hard results’ creates an uncertain future for the International Corruption Unit. Yet, its unique contribution is one that should be widely supported by policy makers.