International cooperation to strengthen the fight against economic crime

A seminar on the use of information technology in the investigation of financial crimes was held in the capital.

The training event was held within the framework of the status of the Academy of Law Enforcement Agencies as the basic organization of the CIS member states for advanced training and retraining of personnel for tax (financial) investigations, as well as prosecutorial and investigative workers.

Representatives of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Financial Monitoring Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the National Security Committee, departmental universities and international organizations, as well as law enforcement and fiscal authorities of Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine took part in its work.

Opening the event, the first vice-rector of the Academy, Kaliolla Seitenov, noted the particular severity of the problem of financial crimes in the context of globalization, and in this regard, the importance of holding a training event.

The participants were also welcomed by Igor Malashevich, Deputy Secretary of the Coordinating Council of Heads of Tax (Financial) Investigation Bodies of the Commonwealth Countries (CSONR), and Luis Francisco de Jorge Mesas, UNODC Coordinator for Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, and others.

The participants of the meeting discussed topical issues of ensuring economic security, as well as issues of enhancing regional cooperation and exchange of experience.

The training included three thematic sections — “Financial crimes – a threat to the economic security of the country”, “Promotion of international legal cooperation and information technology in the fight against financial crimes”, as well as “The role and possibilities of parallel financial investigations. Analytical tools. Countering the creation of financial pyramids”.

Experts spoke about the best modern practices of detecting and suppressing financial crimes, tracking and returning criminal capital exported abroad, the main directions of international mutual legal assistance in the field of information and communication technologies.

The students learned how to investigate and identify schemes for the legalization of criminal proceeds, the creation of financial pyramids. We studied the role and capabilities of financial intelligence units, methods of working with open sources to recover stolen assets, methodology for proving the facts of crimes.

As a result of the training, further directions for enhancing regional cooperation of fiscal authorities to combat financial crime, professional development of specialists, improvement of legislation and law enforcement practice for the investigation of offenses in this area were identified.

The seminar was held with the support of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the OSCE Program Office in Nur-Sultan. The co-organizers were also the CSONR and the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Financial Monitoring of the Republic of Kazakhstan.