Final Report

This report is not intended to replace the Final Report prepared by the Secretariat after each meeting of the Group of Experts; however, since it was decided at the meeting that some of the points would be clarified after an exchange of electronic mail, the Final Report will remain in suspense until a final decision has been reached based on comments from the participating countries.

The activities proposed in the agenda were carried out as follows:

Tuesday, June 24

The inaugural session was conducted by the Chair of the CICAD Group of Experts to Control Money Laundering, Mrs. Mary Lee Warren, and the Deputy Executive Secretary of CICAD, Mr. Abraham Stein.

The Executive Secretariat reported on the election of the Chair and Vice Chair of the Group of Experts and presented the Work Plan approved in November 2002 by CICAD XXXII.

A panel composed of the French expert Jean François Thony, of the International Monetary Fund, and the Spanish expert Fernando Jiménez spoke about various legislative approaches to combating terrorism.  Mr. Thony focused on existing international instruments in this regard, and Mr. Jiménez, on various aspects of and background on Spanish legislation.

Country representatives then described  legislation in their respective countries.

Following this review of the situation in each participating country, the meeting turned to an analysis of the document presented by the United States delegation.  Consideration of this document, which proposed various reforms to the current text of the CICAD Model Regulations on Money Laundering and other serious offenses, centered on the following aspects: a) the criminalization of terrorism financing; b) the freezing of assets; and c) The discussion was not concluded during this session.

Wednesday, June 25

Presentations were given by KiethArnold of Belize, Luz Núñez Camacho of Mexico, and Cary Stinebower of the United States on alternative means of blocking terrorism funding and on the authorities empowered to effect immediate immobilization of funds.  These presentations were followed by discussion among the participants on the situation in their respective countries.

A working group set up to address the issue presented an alternative to the text proposed by the United States with respect to the criminalization of terrorism financing, and participants initiated an analysis of the U.S. document with respect to the freezing of assets.

The plenary accepted the working group’s proposal on the criminalization of terrorism financing as well as the new wording of the Model Regulations for the control of unregulated financial institutions – FATF Special Recommendation VI, also developed by a working group set up for the purpose.

During the afternoon, a panel composed of Joe Chicorella, of Citibank, and Mrs. Johnson, of the United States gave a presentation on the increasing use of control measures for politically exposed persons.

Thursday, June 26

A new working group was set up to draft alternatives to the articles proposed by the United States on the designation of persons belonging to or connected with terrorist organizations and the freezing of their assets.  The results of the group’s work were approved by the plenary.

Typology exercises were conducted by Peru (corruption); Mexico (corruption); and the United States (FBI), also on corruption.

The plenary decided that the alternatives to the wording proposed by the United States would be refined by the Executive Secretariat and the revised versions would be distributed to the participating experts for comment within 30 days.