Regional Programme for Afghanistan and Neighboring Countries continues support with strengthening international cooperation in combating illicit financial flows and their harmful effects resulting from criminal activities and strengthening public-private partnerships to counter illicit financial flows
Almaty 22 November 2019
UNODC under Sub-Programme 2 “International/Regional Cooperation in Legal Matters” of the Regional Programme for Afghanistan and Neighbouring Countries jointly with the Central Asian Regional Information and Coordination Centre for Combating Illicit Trafficking of Narcotic Drugs, Psychotropic Substances and their Precursors (CARICC), with support of experts from the United Kingdom, Guernsey and Italy organized a follow up workshop on “Financial Disruption of Illicit Financial Flows Associated with Transnational Organized Crime” in Almaty, Kazakhstan from 21-22 November 2019.
The workshop was attended by 24 experts on anti-money laundering and investigators from law enforcement agencies, Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) and prosecuting authorities of I.R. Afghanistan, Republic of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, I.R. Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Republic of Uzbekistan.
During the two-day workshops, participants had an opportunity to discuss and share experiences on issues related to the mechanism of asset recovery as a tool to fight illicit flows, emerging typologies, importance of strengthening public-private partnerships in the financial sector, sustainability in terms of continuing dialogues and technical cooperation on illicit financial flows within the Regional Programme for Afghanistan and Neighbouring Countries, importance of strengthening further cooperation between countries of the Programme within the signed Memoranda of Understanding on anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism and acknowledgment of the need to continue with identification of threats to the financial sector from syndicates of formal and informal means.
Table-top exercises on financial investigations of related cases were facilitated by the experts to apply the techniques introduced and strategies discussed.
UNODC thanks the Government of Finland for supporting this initiative.