From January 13 to 17, the global operation “A.S.S.E.T.” was held at the Europol headquarters in The Hague (Netherlands), which was attended by representatives of law enforcement agencies from 28 countries. Ukraine was represented by specialists from the Department of Finding, Tracing and Recovery of Assets in Foreign Jurisdictions - Daryna Pavliuk - and the Department of Digital Development of Asset Finding and Tracing - Pavlo Trukhan - of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA).

Within the framework of Europol's new pilot project A.S.S.E.T., our team has coped with the extremely difficult task of identifying assets abroad, even in jurisdictions with which there was no previous contact, and has achieved significant results.

Thanks to effective cooperation between ARMA and foreign competent authorities in the framework of Ukrainian criminal cases, foreign competent authorities have identified: 16 bank accounts, a balance sheet, and a bank account:

     - 16 bank accounts with a balance of over USD 6 million

     - 3 real estate objects

     - 2 cars;

     - shares in the authorized capital of foreign companies worth more than EUR 400 thousand.

It is worth noting that the information on the identified assets has already been transferred to the law enforcement agencies of Ukraine for further procedural actions in relation to these assets, including the EUR 6 million found in a bank in a foreign country.

Moreover, during the 5 days of the project, ARMA specialists, at the request of the competent authorities of foreign countries, found on the territory of Ukraine:

     - 23 land plots

     - 20 real estate objects

     - 7 cars

     - 3 pieces of weapons

     - 1 object of intellectual property;

     - shares in the authorized capital of legal entities.

“This operation is the result of active cooperation between ARMA and EUROPOL. ARMA expresses its sincere gratitude to EUROPOL for its trust and the opportunity to join this project. This is a significant step forward in the fight against financial crime!” said Pavlo Velykorechanin, Deputy Head of ARMA.

ARMA continues its mission to identify and trace criminal assets in all parts of the world, demonstrating that international cooperation is key to effectively combating financial crime.

For more information:

Project A.S.S.E.T. (Asset Search and Seizure Task Force) is a unique initiative aimed at recovering as many criminal assets as possible around the world. In total, 43 law enforcement agencies from 28 countries joined the operation, as well as representatives of international organizations, including Eurojust and Interpol.

More about the project HERE.