The Annual General Meeting 2021 of the Balkan Asset Management Interagency Network (BAMIN) has been successfully delivered in Tirana, Albania from 27 to 29 October 2021. The AGM was organised by the BAMIN Albanian Presidency and BAMIN Steering Group and logistically coordinated by the BAMIN Secretariat located at SAFE.

After more than 2 years, our members have finally met in person, having thus the chance to use BAMIN as a platform for information exchange, also focusing on specific cases related to asset management in the last 12 months.

Participants discussed, in detail, challenges and best practices and had an opportunity to network with members from the 16 jurisdictions attending the event (10 in person 6 online). During a field visit to Shkodra, they were introduced to an example of social re-use of confiscated assets: a mobile library built on a 4×4 SUV vehicle, which provides books to children living in remote villages. Right after, BAMIN members also visited a confiscated chicken farm, under the administration of AAPSK, the Albanian asset management office.

This was the network’s first in-person meeting since 2019, convening 40 participants from asset management agencies from ten jurisdictions, representatives of the BAMIN Secretariat, the OSCE, GIZ and Europol, with 20 participants from six jurisdictions also participating online.

Elena Pici, General Secretary and Head of the Inter-Institutional Committee on Measures against Organized Crime opened the second day of the meeting by welcoming participants and stressing the BAMIN network’s role in fostering collaboration among jurisdictions. The welcoming remarks were followed by short presentations from representatives of asset management agencies, as well as keynote speakers from the U.S. Marshals Service from the United States Department of Justice, the Criminal Assets Bureau in Dublin, the National Police Chiefs’ Council in London, and Europol.

The OSCE, together with the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) through the Global Program on ‘Combating Illicit Financial Flows’, supported the BAMIN AGM 2021, opening the doors for new multi-donor event and a fruitful longer cooperation.

The OSCE supports BAMIN through its extra-budgetary project, Strengthening the fight against transnational organized crime in South-Eastern Europe through improved regional co-operation in asset seizure, confiscation, management and re-use. This regional initiative is jointly implemented by the OSCE Transnational Threats Department and the Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities (OCEEA)