If Algiers claims to have recovered the equivalent of $30 billion in property belonging to former leaders and ex-businessmen under Bouteflika, the recovery of assets held abroad is proving complicated, if not impossible.
Abdelmadjid Tebboune repeats it like a mantra: one of his main missions, since he became head of state, is the recovery of misappropriated property and assets by “Issaba”, the mafia gang that has plundered the country’s wealth over the past two decades. He repeats it with all the more conviction and will since he has not forgiven certain members of this clique his brutal dismissal from the post of head of government, in August 2017 accounts from the oligarchs who gravitated around the presidential circle. demanded, because he had attacked dirty money and had
But more than four years after the start, in the summer of 2019, of the major corruption trials, what is the outcome of this recovery process, while almost all of the major cases have been closed and the convictions definitive decisions taken by the Supreme Court? Although the amounts announced are substantial, they are nonetheless provided almost haphazardly. During an interview given in December 2022 to Algerian journalists, the tenant of the El Mouradia palace thus indicated that on this date, the State recovered the equivalent of 20 billion dollars. Five months later, in May 2023, he puts forward the figure of 22 billion dollars recovered, both domestically and abroad. Finally, during the speech delivered in December 2023 before both houses of Parliament, Abdelmadjid Tebboune announced the recovery of the equivalent of 30 billion dollars in cash, real estate, and industrial units.
How did this amount increase from 20 to 30 billion dollars in the space of one year? Mystery. The other mystery lies in the endowment of the Fund with assets and property confiscated or recovered in the context of anti-corruption cases. Created in June 2021, it records in “revenue the funds confiscated by final court decisions in Algeria and abroad as well as the proceeds from the sale of confiscated or recovered property and in expenses, the payment of costs linked to the ‘execution of confiscation, recovery and sale procedures as well as settlement of debts encumbering confiscated or recovered property’. As of December 31, 2023, this fund records a balance of 21 424,781,956 dinars (approximately $159 million).
Insufficiently substantiated requests
If the process of seizure and recovery of property held on national soil (factories, villas, pleasure boats, apartments, hotels, lots of land, buildings, cars, jewelry, and bank assets) resulted in substantial amounts – despite the opacity surrounding this issue –, it is not the same for the fortunes amassed at the ‘stranger. On this, the operation has so far failed.
Certainly, Abdelmadjid Tebboune and his Minister of Justice repeatedly repeat that foreign partners, particularly European countries, are willing to cooperate with Algeria for the restitution of these properties held by former businessmen ex-ministers, and senior army officers. But the results are well below expectations, hopes, and announcement effects.
Over the past four years, Algerian justice has sent through diplomatic channels no less than 220 letters rogatory and requests for mutual legal assistance to around thirty countries (France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, United States, Belgium, Ireland, Canada China, Spain, Panama, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Italy, United Kingdom…). According to various lawyers contacted by Jeune Afrique, almost all requests remained a dead letter. This is because these requests for mutual legal assistance amount to a listing of real estate or amounts transferred by people who have been convicted, without being supported by irrefutable documents.
As proof, the responses from magistrates contacted in Europe, Asia, or the Middle East boil down to requests for additional information. It will undoubtedly be several years before the Algerian state begins to recover part of the ill-gotten gains. Especially since several obstacles stand in his path.
First, in the opinion of many experts, Algerian magistrates are not sufficiently trained and equipped to manage and bring such delicate and complex cases to a successful conclusion. The other pitfall, and not the least, consists of identifying these assets acquired abroad as truly belonging to people convicted in Algeria, and verifying that they are not registered in the name of their relatives, third parties, or anonymous fiduciary entities. Finally, it is necessary to irrefutably prove that these assets are indeed the result of money laundering, embezzlement or embezzlement.
Once this process has been completed, there remains another difficult barrier to overcome: winning the legal battle against lawyers that these wealthy people have already hired, or could hire, to oppose a possible confiscation of their belongings. The case of Abdeslam Bouchouareb, former Minister of Industry, who is the subject of several convictions, is edifying. To defend his interests in Switzerland following a request for mutual legal assistance sent by an Algerian judge, the former minister retained the services of a renowned firm in Geneva. This shows how delicate and complicated the mission of the Algerian judges is. Almost impossible.
Saïd Bouteflika dropped by Switzerland
A glimmer of hope, however, recently came from Switzerland. Swiss justice responded favorably to the letters rogatory targeting Saïd Bouteflika, brother of the former president sentenced to twelve years in prison, by transmitting information on transfers he received to a bank account in Geneva, including one from an account in Kuwait. But before the justice system of his country gets its hands on these transfers, it is a safe bet that a lot of water will have flowed under the bridges. the bridges.
