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Prosecutor & Asset Recovery

Prosecutor / asset-recovery counsel

Sequenced by the shape of a prosecution: elements of the offence, then proof of the flow, then cooperation, then confiscation and return. Technical layering modules are included at the depth needed to cross-examine, not to operate.

10 modules · 34 lessons · 132 credits · ~19 h reading · 10 case studies

The sequence

  1. 01
    IFF501 · Foundations · 12 credits · ~2 h

    Vocabulary, typologies and the IFF landscape

    Establishes the working vocabulary; money laundering, IFF, aggressive tax planning, tax evasion, corruption proceeds, and situates each within the global financial system.

    Autonomous-offence doctrine and the elements you must plead.

    Case: The Wolfsberg Bakery: a placement primer
  2. 02
    IFF504 · Foundations · 15 credits · ~2 h

    Predicate offences, tax crime and the proceeds-of-crime chain

    Traces the legal architecture connecting an underlying crime to the money that flows from it, from the FATF designated categories and self-laundering through serious tax crime, tracing doctrine and civil forfeiture, to the evidential chain a prosecutor must build.

    Predicate offences, tax crime and the proceeds chain in law.

    Case: The consultancy-fee cascade: tracing state-capture proceeds through a tax-and-laundering lens
  3. 03
    IFF503 · Foundations · 15 credits · ~2 h

    The global AML architecture: FATF, FSRBs and mutual evaluations

    Maps the institutional scaffolding of global AML/CFT, FATF's standard-setting role, the FSRB network, the mutual evaluation cycle and the ICRG listing process — using South Africa's 2023 greylisting and 2025 delisting as the organising case.

    The standards backdrop your court and your legislature are responding to.

    Case: Tracing an evaluation finding to a national remediation commitment
  4. 04
    IFF605 · Layering · 15 credits · ~2 h

    Shell companies, nominees and the corporate veil

    How anonymous corporate structures are built, why they are so effective, and how to pierce them.

    Corporate veil and nominee arrangements — the evidential heart of most cases.

    Case: Reconstructing the Sierra Holdings chain
  5. 05
    IFF608 · Layering · 12 credits · ~2 h

    Professional intermediaries and layering logistics

    Examines the gatekeeper professions that design and operate layering schemes, trust and company service providers, nominee networks, and law-firm client accounts; the legal-privilege boundary carved out by the CJEU, and how layering is actually project-managed as a service.

    Professional enablers: privilege arguments and how they are properly confined.

    Case: The architect's ledger: a professionally-designed multi-layer structure unravels
  6. 06
    IFF614 · Integration · 12 credits · ~2 h

    Public procurement, corruption proceeds and state capture

    Examines how bid rigging, kickback structures and shell subcontractors convert public procurement into a laundering vector, and how the Zondo Commission record shows integration proceeding through professional intermediaries at state-owned enterprises. Equips investigators to trace captured procurement networks from tender document to beneficial owner.

    Procurement corruption and state capture: the dominant fact pattern in practice.

    Case: The captured locomotive tender
  7. 07
    IFF715 · Mastery · 15 credits · ~3 h

    Forensic accounting for prosecution

    Turning transactional evidence into court-usable proof of an offence.

    Forensic accounting evidence, and what makes a schedule survive challenge.

    Case: The Ministry contract kick-back reconstruction
  8. 08
    IFF716 · Mastery · 12 credits · ~2 h

    Cross-border cooperation and evidence

    How intelligence, information and evidence actually move between states; MLAT practice, Egmont FIU exchange, exchange of information on request versus CRS/CARF automatic exchange, joint audits, and how to draft a request that gets answered.

    Cross-border evidence gathering, admissibility, and the eighteen-month gap problem.

    Case: The eighteen-month gap: a transnational bribery case stalled on evidence
  9. 09
    IFF717 · Mastery · 12 credits · ~2 h

    Asset recovery, confiscation and return

    The full recovery pipeline from tracing to restraint to confiscation and return — non-conviction-based confiscation, UNCAC Chapter V, the StAR Initiative, the EU's 2024 asset-recovery Directive, Swiss and UK restitution practice, GFAR return principles, and the politics that stall repatriation.

    Confiscation, repatriation and the politics of return.

    Case: The Abacha billions: two decades from freeze to (partial) return
  10. 10
    IFF720 · Mastery · 12 credits · ~2 h

    Expert testimony and the construction of the financial case file

    How a financial investigation is turned into a courtroom-ready case file; custody, indexing and disclosure, and how the forensic accountant reports, is qualified, and survives cross-examination without losing the probative force of the tracing.

    Constructing the case file and preparing your expert.

    Case: The unravelling of the 'reference-priced' concentrate schedule