First Quarter 2006
Anti-Money Laundering: "Faking it" to get it right
Simulated investigation gives hands-on learning experience
The Bureau of Prospective and Analysis of the Ministry of Interior of Spain and CICAD organized a workshop using a simulated investigation of a money laundering case. The workshop took place at the offices of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECI) in Antigua, Guatemala on February 27-March 3. It brought together police officers, prosecutors and officials from the financial intelligence units of Central America and Dominican Republic.
Responding to requests from several member states, CICAD implemented this activity to promote cooperation among the diverse stakeholders in the anti-money laundering cross-disciplinary process, using a case file that contains information drawn from a real case used in mock trials by CICAD and the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (UNODC), whose representatives also came to the event.
Officials from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and the Dominican Republic were guided by Spanish technical personnel as well as CICAD and UN experts on how to use special techniques in financial intelligence and police investigation. The results of this exercise were evaluated by the members of the police and prosecuting team of Spain, considering it to be a unique event in Latin America.
CICAD Anti-Money Laundering Unit coordinator Rafael Franzini is joined at the head table by prosecutors
Orlan Chavez and Roberto Ramirez of Honduras, and Jorge Monge of Costa Rica at the Antigua workshop.
Learning the ropes of money laundering's web
CICAD's Money Laundering Unit and the Support Commission for the Reform and Modernization of the Justice System (Dominican Republic) held a training course on money laundering for more than 30 judges and prosecutors from different jurisdictions in the country, touching on issues such as criminalization of money laundering, seizures and internatioanl cooperation, among others.
"We expect these judges and prosecutors to become teachers in other workshops that will be held in the coming months," said Jorge Yumi, the CICAD representative, during the closure of the February 27-28 event in Santo Domingo.
The Spanish consultants, Javier Zaragoza, current anti-drug prosecutor of Spain, Eduardo Fabián Caparros, law professor of the University of Salamanca, and Isidoro Blanco, law professor of the University of Vigo, shared the podium with local experts.
Yumi stated that a mock trial will be held soon in the Dominican Republic, a joint program with the UNODC, "that is a perfect complement to the knowledge acquired in the current course."
For more information, see the Money Laundering Unit.
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