The Prosecutor General of the Republic of Armenia took part in the 36th session of the Coordinating Council of Prosecutors General of the CIS Member States

ArmInfo. On September 30, RA Prosecutor General Anna Vardapetyan participated in the 36th session of the Coordinating Council of Prosecutors General of the CIS Member States online.

According to the press service of the supervisory body, under the first item on the agenda, Anna Vardapetyan delivered a report on "Modern Challenges and New Solutions in the Field of Returning Illegally Acquired Property from Abroad." The Prosecutor General noted that the cross-border nature of modern crime creates new challenges for states: illegally acquired property can be transported to different countries, registered in the names of related persons, and converted into other types of property. "Under these circumstances, asset recovery should be considered a complex process, from their discovery and tracing to freezing or seizure, judicial investigation, confiscation, management, and actual return," the RA Prosecutor General emphasized, adding that the impossibility of criminal prosecution should not automatically mean the impossibility of returning illegally acquired property. In this context, Anna Vardapetyan referred to the mechanism of non-conviction-based asset confiscation. She also presented Armenia's experience, noting that with the adoption of the Law on Confiscation of Property of Illegal Origin in 2020, a legal basis was formed for the application of an independent civil-law mechanism for the return of illegally acquired property. In this context, emphasizing the effectiveness of international mutual legal assistance, the RA Prosecutor General emphasized that international cooperation should begin at the stage of asset identification and tracing, ensuring its prompt freezing, seizure, and storage until the completion of national legal proceedings.

Anna Vardapetyan also touched upon the importance of the Council of Europe's Warsaw Convention and its Additional Protocol adopted in 2026, emphasizing that representatives of the RA Prosecutor General's Office were directly involved in the Protocol's development. The Prosecutor General also presented challenges arising in the course of international cooperation related to differences in the legal systems of different states, the absence of similar civil enforcement mechanisms, and restrictions on the further use of information obtained informally as evidence. Anna Vardapetyan emphasized the importance of further developing international cooperation in this area, highlighting the prompt exchange of information on assets, improving mechanisms for the prompt freezing and seizure of property, ensuring the possibility of international mutual legal assistance before a final court decision, mutual recognition and enforcement of judicial decisions, and the effective management of confiscated property. In conclusion, Anna Vardapetyan noted that today, asset recovery is no longer simply a matter of confiscating property after the completion of criminal proceedings.

It should be noted that Oleg Krylov, a representative of the Council of Heads of Financial Intelligence Units of the CIS Member States, who spoke at the meeting, noted that while the rates of seizure and return of assets from abroad are extremely low, "in modern conditions, the movement of funds across several state borders takes minutes and even seconds, while tracking, seizing, and returning them to the victim takes months and years." Buy

We also emphasize that the current meeting of the CCGP is entirely dedicated to a single topic: developing solutions for the return of assets from abroad. The meeting is attended by the Prosecutors General of Azerbaijan, Armenia (via videoconference), Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, with a representative of the Prosecutor General's Office of Turkmenistan participating as an observer.