At the ARIN-AP meeting in New Delhi, ED Director Rahul Navin said asset recovery must end with assets being returned to victims or the exchequer. He said closer international coordination is needed to connect tracing, confiscation, management and restitution.
Enforcement Directorate (ED) Director Rahul Navin said asset recovery should ultimately result in money and property being returned to victims or the public exchequer, rather than ending with the seizure or confiscation of assets.
Addressing the closing session of the 11th Annual General Meeting of the Asset Recovery Interagency Network, Asia Pacific (ARIN-AP) in New Delhi, Navin stressed the need for closer international cooperation to ensure that criminal proceeds are recovered and put to their intended use.
“The measure by which the public judges law enforcement institutions” is ultimately the return of assets, he said, highlighting restitution to victims, transfers to the exchequer and the social reuse of confiscated assets as key outcomes of the recovery process.
Navin said asset recovery should be viewed as a continuous chain — from tracing illicit wealth and securing confiscation to managing seized assets and ensuring their eventual return.
The three-day meeting, hosted by the ED under India’s presidency of ARIN-AP for 2026, brought together prosecutors, investigators, financial intelligence officers, asset managers and policymakers from across the Asia-Pacific region, along with representatives of partner agencies and Indian law enforcement bodies.
Held under the theme “Closing the Loop: From Tracing to Return”, the meeting focused on connecting every stage of an asset recovery case rather than treating investigation, prosecution, confiscation and restitution as separate processes.
Navin noted that investigators may focus on tracing assets, prosecutors on obtaining confiscation orders and asset managers on their custody, while victims can remain waiting for the final outcome. He said the objective was to give practitioners a clearer understanding of the entire recovery process and the challenges involved at each stage.
CRYPTOCURRENCY, CROSS-BORDER COOPERATION IN FOCUS
The meeting also discussed the challenges posed by the rapid movement of virtual assets and the need for timely engagement with service providers, blockchain analytics firms and foreign counterpart agencies.
Participants examined cross-border asset tracing, the early experience of INTERPOL’s Silver Notice and the importance of converting intelligence gathered through informal international cooperation into evidence that can support formal legal proceedings.
Navin stressed that informal exchanges between agencies are most effective when coordinated with the formal requests required under legal procedures.
The meeting also examined non-conviction-based confiscation, under which assets can be confiscated in certain circumstances without a criminal conviction. Discussions focused on legal tests applied by appellate courts, including standards of proof, reverse onus and proportionality.
Asset management emerged as another key issue, with Navin cautioning that assets can lose value between restraint and confiscation if their custody and preservation are not planned from the beginning of an investigation.
