Asset Forfeiture, Tracing & Recovery

Former Federal Prosecutors Experienced in International Asset Forfeiture. The firm's attorneys include several former Assistant United States Attorneys with significant experience pursuing, and defending against, sophisticated international asset forfeiture, tracing, and recovery efforts. We are regularly called on to teach seminars worldwide to bankruptcy trustees and government officials on the latest techniques in this complex area.

Access to International Consortium of Experienced Professionals. The firm is a member of FraudNet, a worldwide consortium of law firms affiliated with the International Chamber of Commerce specializing in international asset tracing, forfeiture and recovery matters.

We have significant experience achieving favorable results as lead counsel in high-profile, complex, international asset forfeiture, tracing and recovery matters. We have litigated cases involving the tracing and/or forfeiture of a wide range of assets located all over the world, including an estate and surrounding lands located in the Dominican Republic; bank and brokerage accounts in Liechtenstein, the Philippines, British Virgin Islands, the Channel Islands, the Cayman Islands, Thailand, Germany, Nigeria, Belgium, Lebanon, and South Korea; luxury cars; rare coins; executive stock option and pension plans; hotels; warehouses filled with counterfeit Nintendo game consoles; precious gems and jewelry; expensive musical instruments; and valuable paintings and lithographs, to name a few.

Representation of Claimants. We can assist individual and institutional clients in protecting and recovering ownership, lienholder, or other interests in property hidden by individuals or seized by government entities.

Representation of Defendants. We can also assist individuals who are the subject of asset recovery or forfeiture efforts in resisting unjustified efforts by governments or private claimants to seize personal assets. The firm's attorneys are experienced in handling civil or criminal forfeiture matters from the initial filing of claims through the ultimate disposition of the forfeiture matter, whether through settlement, trial, restoration proceedings, or the filing of a petition for remission.

Representative cases include:

• Asset tracing and forfeiture proceedings involving Canada, the British Virgin Islands, and the United States, which were intertwined with related criminal prosecutions, Securities & Exchange Commission civil enforcement actions, and Canadian regulatory proceedings in connection with an alleged $80 million stock manipulation scheme.
• Asset tracing and forfeiture proceedings involving more than $70 million embezzled by an executive at a Swiss financial institution, and use of stolen funds to purchase and improve a large five-star hotel in the United States.
• Asset forfeiture, remission and mitigation issues before the U.S. Department of Justice involving more than $30 million at issue and numerous potential owner, owner-victim, and nonowner-victim claimants.
• Asset forfeiture proceedings and international investigations conducted in connection with disputed ownership claims over a famous rare coin issued by the United States Mint, eventually auctioned at Sotheby's for approximately $7 million.
• Asset forfeiture proceedings of more than $5 million involving financial institutions and bank accounts in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and related criminal investigations and prosecutions for money laundering and wire fraud.