Tackling laundering of proceeds of corruption requires a concerted response

To disguise corruptly acquired proceeds and hide the trail of evidence, criminals often launder their gains through as many jurisdictions and transactions as possible. A concerted response is therefore necessary to fight money laundering, both domestically and internationally.

UNODC ROCA conducted a workshop in Tashkent on 12-14 November 2013 entitled "Sharing practices in international cooperation for the prevention of legalization (laundering) of the proceeds of corruption, their detection, seizure, confiscation and return/sharing". This workshop was held with the General Prosecutor's Office in Uzbekistan, in an effort to facilitate cooperation between financial intelligence units, law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, judges and the banking sector in Central Asia, as well as transit and destination countries for money laundering.

During the two and half days, the practitioners from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, China, the Czech Republic, Israel, Latvia, the Russian Federation, the UK and UNODC, the World Bank, INTERPOL and Europol/CARIN exchanged best practices and national experiences in prevention and investigation of money laundering. They also discussed the detection, seizure, confiscation and return of such proceeds. They identified obstacles to direct international exchange of information and mutual legal assistance, shared success stories and discussed unresolved cases and unsatisfied requests. 

While the participants agreed that there is no single solution to address money laundering, and the legislation and practices of one country cannot be blindly transposed and incorporated into the legislation of another, they acknowledged that the workshop served as a platform to learn from mistakes and get ideas on how to adapt best practices to suit respective national requirements.