The pilot coordinated by the Expert Working Group on Asset Tracing and Recovery (the Expert Group) will last by at least next November and will cover 52 INTERPOL members: Algeria, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Burundi, China, Colombia, the Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Gabon, Georgia, Gibraltar, Guinea, Hungary, India, Iraq, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kenya, South Korea, Kuwait, Latvia, Malawi, Malta, Moldova, Mozambique, Namibia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine, the UAE, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Based on the outcome of the pilot project, the Expert Group will evaluate the effectiveness of implementation of the Silver Notices and associated expenses, as well as the probability of their use for illegal purposes, and will put forward the recommendations on further employment of this instrument.

The Silver Notices will be instrumental for the INTERPOL member states in requesting from each other the information on assets related to criminal activities, including corruption, fraud, illegal drug trafficking, terrorism, environmental crimes and other serious offences. Like in the case of the other notices, the Silver Notice can be sent by the initiating country to all INTERPOL member states at once or only to specific jurisdictions.

In using this instrument, the National Central Bureaus (NCB, this is the body that engages with the organisation as a whole and other NCBs and is normally a division of the Ministry of the Interior or another law enforcement agency – note of the editor) will be entitled to send requests to:

• Determine the location of assets;
• Identify assets;
• Receive information on assets;
• Exercise covert and/or constant monitoring of assets.

The transfer of this information will be allowed for the purposes of subsequent confiscation within both criminal and civil proceedings. In the context of criminal prosecution, the relevant decision can be taken before the conviction in the event that the notice concerns the individual against whom a criminal investigation into a crime the punishment for which entails, as a minimum, four-year imprisonment, is underway; the minimum threshold value of the proceeds of crime for filing a notice is not established.

The Silver Notices, INTERPOL states, should facilitate tracing, identification and receipt of information about illicit assets, including real estate, vehicles, financial accounts and business, and can become a promising mechanism for overcoming the slow and burdensome mutual legal assistance procedures that are generally used for obtaining information about assets located abroad.

The Silver Notices provide for the use of the information obtained before the coercive action: notably, the relevant data will be used to facilitate subsequent bilateral interaction, including submission of arrest requests, confiscation and/or return of assets.

INTERPOL experts believe that the Silver Notices will facilitate:

• Improved exchange of information between law enforcement bodies;
• Systemic approach to tracing and returning assets concealed in different jurisdictions;
• Enhanced international cooperation in general.

Despite the advantages, the use of the Silver Notices has provoked certain criticism by experts. It is stressed, in particular, that the possibility to get information through them without a conviction creates the risks of their use by some member countries to pursue political opponents and anti-government activists. Similar concerns were previously voiced about the Red Notices that make it possible to request information about the location of certain individuals from law enforcement authorities across the world and initiate their provisional arrest with the aim of subsequent extradition: there are cases, where this instrument was repeatedly used against international activists to put an end to their activities and extradite them to their countries of origin, where they were inevitably arrested and imprisoned on political grounds.

*Besides the Silver Notices, INTEPOL has a number of other types of colour-coded notices: Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Black, Orange and Purple along with the Notice issued at the request of the UN Security Council. These Notices constitute international requests used by INTERPOL member states’ law enforcement to exchange information about crimes.