Krasnov proposed three steps for CIS countries to improve digital justice

On October 30, Kazan hosted the 36th meeting of the Coordination Council of Prosecutors General of the CIS countries, which considered the main problems of returning from abroad assets earned by criminal means.

The event was attended by the heads of supervisory departments of Azerbaijan, Armenia (in VKS mode), Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In addition, the Deputy Prosecutor General of Turkmenistan, as well as representatives of CIS industry cooperation bodies, were present as observers, an RBC correspondent reports from the council meeting room.

“Illegal proceeds move between jurisdictions in a short time, are registered in the name of nominal owners, and are converted into anonymous virtual assets. At the same time, traditional mechanisms of international cooperation do not always allow for a quick and effective response to these challenges. The situation is aggravated by the politicization of the issues of providing legal assistance and extradition on the part of the leadership of individual states,” Russian Prosecutor General Alexander Gutsan said at the meeting.

At the same time, he noted, the legal procedures existing today made it possible in 2026 to arrest in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Mongolia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Spain the assets of citizens accused of major thefts and tax crimes. The Prosecutor General did not name the volume and amount of seized property.

“In the interests of foreign partners, we have prepared and posted on the website of the Prosecutor General’s Office a special step-by-step guide on asset recovery. It sets out the specifics of Russian legislation, practical recommendations for requests for searches, seizures, arrest and confiscation of property, obtaining evidence and transfer of documents. At the same time, it must be recognized that the implementation of existing procedures in most countries is accompanied by difficulties of various kinds,” Gutsan said.

Representative of the Council of Heads of Financial Intelligence Units of the CIS Oleg Krylov emphasized that the international system of information exchange and freezing of funds needs to be improved. “Despite the growth of geofinancial investigations related to transnational criminal schemes, the rates of arrest, confiscation and recovery of assets from abroad are extremely low,” he said.

Nowadays, different countries apply various civil law and other special procedures for converting illegally acquired assets into state ownership. In Russia, for anti-corruption violations and prohibitions, property acquired with unconfirmed income may be confiscated from state income.

“The solution to these problems will be fully facilitated by the conclusion of an agreement on cooperation between the CIS member states in the field of returning assets from abroad,” Gutsan believes.

The FATF Anti-Money Laundering Standards, international rules created by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), require states to create systems to combat money laundering, the financing of terrorism, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The document contains about 40 recommendations. However, they are not law for countries, since states must implement them into their own legislation and ensure actual application, which often does not happen in practice.

Despite the FATF recommendations, Gutsan noted in his report, the peculiarities of national legal systems make it difficult to recognize and enforce decisions on confiscation or other property liability made in foreign jurisdictions. A foreclosure order issued in one state may not correspond to the form and grounds established by the legislation of another, which, in turn, plays into the hands of offenders seeking to conceal their capital, says the Prosecutor General. Also, Gutsan emphasized, it should be taken into account that criminals everywhere use various “hybrid ways” to legalize their income.

“Given the cross-border nature of criminal challenges, there is an objective need to develop common legal and technological standards at the international level,” he concluded.

How an asset recovery network should work

According to the Prosecutor General's Office, today there are ten interdepartmental agreements in the world, but none of them unites all the CIS countries. The proposed network should become a platform for substantively solving problems of freezing and confiscation of property within the framework of existing national procedures.

It is expected that it will unite specialists from the Commonwealth countries and ensure their direct interaction on the legislative regulation of the necessary procedures. The meeting participants determined the directions for the interstate exchange of requests and information, the convergence of legislation and the preparation of a model law.

Also at the meeting, an initiative was approved to create a legal framework for cooperation between CIS countries in the field of asset recovery. The draft of the corresponding international treaty will be sent to the participating countries for consideration.