DUSHANBE, March 12, 2013, Asia-Plus -- An OSCE-organized regional training course on anti-money-laundering standards for officials from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as Belarus, China and the Russian Federation, kicked off in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on March 12.

Press release issued by the OSCE says that three-day course is organized by the Office of the Coordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities (OCEEA) and the OSCE Project Coordinator in Uzbekistan together with the Financial Intelligence Unit of Uzbekistan, the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (EAG), and the International Training and Methodology Centre for Financial Monitoring (ITMCFM).

Seventy participants from financial intelligence units, law-enforcement agencies and financial supervisory authorities in the EAG participating countries have gathered to study the recent revisions to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) International Standards on Combating Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism and Proliferation.

“Criminals involved in money laundering are professionally organized and often employ new technologies, legal loopholes and weaknesses in cross-border law enforcement to evade detection,” said Jens Nytoft Rasmussen, the acting Head of Mission of the OSCE Project Coordinator in Uzbekistan.

“Financial crime is transnational, and both criminals and the proceeds of crime move easily across borders.  It is important for intelligence services, prosecutors and financial supervisory authorities to stay abreast of the latest developments, and to engage in inter-agency and international co-operation to pursue both criminals and their money.”

The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the ITMCFM and the OSCE are providing expert facilitators.

The training will explore how the FATF Recommendations strengthen global safeguards and provide governments with stronger tools to take action against financial crime.

The standards have been expanded to be clearer on transparency and tougher on corruption, and they call for information-driven risk assessments to ensure that countries use their resources to address the greatest known risks.  The OCEEA recently developed a handbook on data collection to support the national risk assessment process and has made it publically available via the OSCE website.