Swiss Announce Willingness to Cooperate with Nigeria in Recovery of Abacha’s Assets

On August 19, 2003 the Swiss government announced its intention to cooperate with the Nigerian government in recovering $618 million allegedly stolen by former dictator Sani Abacha. Abacha is believed to have looted more than $4 billion during his dictatorship, millions of which is believed to be frozen in the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein. Although conventions exist which allow recovered revenue to be shared with international law enforcement organizations or other states (with treaty agreements), such sharing has rarely occurred and partially explains why countries have such difficulties recovering assets lost to corruption.