Cabinet-approved Asset Management Bureau to start operating within days

A new ‘Asset Management Bureau’ will come into force in the coming days following the publication of the Cabinet-approved regulations in the government gazette.

In a bid to fight organised crime, including drug trafficking, the government - through Minister for Justice Owen Bonnici – has set up the Asset Management Bureau based on the Irish model.

“The Bureau will trace and identity assets held by individuals or groups involved in organised crime. The Bureau will not only trace and identify assets but it will also manage and administer attached or frozen assets in view of investigations or persecutions underway,” Bonnici said.

The minister said that the fight against criminality can only be successful if those who profited from the crime lose their assets. The setting up of the Bureau brings Malta in line with EU directives.

The Bureau will bring together entities such as the Police, the Economic Crimes Unit and the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit.

Bonnici said an important aspect of the operations of the office will be forensic auditing and forensic accounting. The Bureau will thus have the authority to appoint such experts.

The Asset Management Bureau will consist of a Board and a directorate. The directorate will be headed by the Court’s Director General. The Bureau, on the other hand, will be headed by the registrar of the Criminal Courts.

The Director, the Deputy Director and Bureau Officers shall abide by any Code of Ethics applicable to public officers.

In the exercise of its functions, the Bureau shall not be subject to any direct or indirect influence or control by any person, authority or body.

The Board shall be responsible for the policy to be adopted by the Bureau and to be executed and pursued by the Director, Deputy Director and Bureau Officers and to ensure that the Director, Deputy Director and Bureau Officers carry out that policy accordingly.

The Asset Recovery Bureau shall administer, sell, transfer, exchange, dispose of in whatever manner and deposit in the consolidated fund any money the value whereof corresponds to such instrumentalities and property recovered from proceeds of crime.

Amongst other functions, the Bureau shall assist the Auditor General in carrying out annual audits of its property and the administration thereof and administer property attached or seized, frozen and confiscated.