28 February - 3 March 2017 - CRIMJUST supported the participation of Nigeria and Colombia to attend the workshop on "Understanding and disrupting illicit financial flows associated with the Southern Route for opiate trafficking" organized by UNODC and its Global Programme against Money-Laundering, Proceeds of Crime and the Financing of Terrorism (GPML), held in Zanzibar, United Republic of Tanzania.
The workshop brought together 65 representatives from law enforcement agencies, financial intelligence units and other relevant agencies from Colombia, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Iran, Kenya, Pakistan, and Tanzania, United Arab Emirates. Experts were also present from: UNODC's Global Maritime Crime Programme, Container Control Programme, Afghan Opiate Trade Project, Global Programme CRIMJUST, the UN Security Council Monitoring Team (1988), Combined Maritime Force, European Union Heroin Route Project, Japan, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States of America. GPML opened the four day workshop with an introduction to the actual strategic context. CRIMJUST along with the other programmes presented its logical framework and objectives, in line with the European Union Cocaine Route Programme, which seeks to build the capacity of law enforcement agencies and judicial bodies addressing cocaine trafficking and related criminal activity by promoting regional and trans-regional cooperation.
Nigeria and Colombia brought insightful presentation and shared their valuable approach regarding technics to disrupt illicit financial flows originated from organized crime and cocaine trafficking in particular
The workshops addressed current threats and disruptions and put forward practical exercises and case studies to allow delegations to rethink together their technical assistance capabilities and possible initiatives in the understanding and disrupting of illicit financial flows associated with drug trafficking and organized crime. Topics discussed included : lessons from investigating cocaine trafficking networks, the drugs-terrorism nexus, developing and retaining financial investigation experts, multi-commodity networks (namely, cocaine and heroin), asset recovery networks, enhancing National AML/CFT Risk Assessments and strategic planning for the financial disruption of organised crime networks. In the margins of the workshop a number of operational planning meetings took place and experts also identified where information-sharing was needed.
It is hoped that the success of this workshop will become the first of a regular series of meetings on this topic.
Under the framework of the CRIMJUST project funded by E U 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
