15-18 January 2018 -Law enforcement agencies from Colombia, Peru and Argentina receive technical assistance on the financial disruption of criminal networks
The threat of transnational organized crime and drug trafficking represented by powerful illicit networks is a growing concern and challenge to law enforcement authorities. To tackle this issue, under the framework of UNODC CRIMJUST, the UNODC Global Programme against Money Laundering (GPML) jointly with UNODC Colombia delivered a training course in Bogota, Colombia. The main goal of the training course was to establish and maintain a network of experts who have specialist understanding on how to disrupt criminal networks by targeting their financial infrastructure.
During the opening ceremony, Bo Mathiasen, Representative of UNODC in Colombia mentioned that ''UNODC considers it essential to continue assisting the building of the law enforcement capacities and networks to disrupt the illicit financial flows - specially to combat the illicit financial flows related to the cocaine route, that affect the 3 countries represented in today's regional training - Colombia, Peru and Argentina''.
In addition, Francisco Garcia, Chief of Cooperation from the Delegation of the European Union to Colombia, endorsed the efforts of CRIMJUST, funded by the European Union, to organize these kind of trainings with a multidimensional approach to support the efforts of member states to address cocaine trafficking in Latin America.
Around 30 participants from criminal justice institutions including, law enforcement, financial investigation analysts, and prosecutors from Argentina, Colombia and Peru attended the workshop. During the three-day training session, participants were able to learn and practice how to use financial disruptions using realistic scenarios, as well as to identify potential next steps including critical information requirements in relation to current drug trafficking and organized crime networks in the region.
Overall, participants confirmed the importance of this exercise as it allowed to exchange information on current regional threats and also reinforced future cooperation in the field of financial disruption of criminal networks.
Under the framework of the CRIMJUST project funded by EU Cocaine Route Programme, UNODC and its partners (INTERPOL and TI) aim to assist Member States to enhance their capacity and integrity of criminal justice institutions to detect, investigate, prosecute and adjudicate illicit cocaine trafficking cases, and to foster cooperation at the interregional level for effective action to tackle drug trafficking and related organized crime.
For more information:
- European Union "Cocaine Route Programme"
- INTERPOL
- GPML
