NYT report claims government and StAR seeking $400m in stolen assets
12 Jun 2010, 1:25 PM
A report in major US newspaper The New York Times has claimed that the Maldives government is seeking to seize US$400 million allegedly stolen by the former government, assisted in its recovery efforts by the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR).
StAR is a joint initiative of the World Bank and the United Nations, which claims to have recovered US$5 billion over the past 16 years. It estimates conservatively that between US$20-40 billion is stolen annually from developing countries “through bribery, misappropriation and corruption – about 15 percent to 30 percent of aid to the developing world.”
In the Maldives, a number of politically-connected figures, including former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, had now become the targets of “increasingly coordinated efforts to repatriate misappropriated funds,” the NYT report said.
“Results to date have been encouraging, but much more can be done,” the NYT said, citing “officials and development experts.”
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