AML-CFT ESCAY Project

We are back to Windhoek, Namibia for another week-long training for Namibian officials on money laundering and terrorist financing investigation, prosecution and asset recovery. With support from the European Union, through its Delegation to Namibia, we are honoured to be part of this second week of training. The first week of training was held in July, here in Windhoek. The backdrop for the first and this second round of Training is the grey listing of Namibia by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), in February. This assistance provided by the European Union through the AML CFT ESCAY Project is expected to assist Namibia to sufficiently implement relevant action plans and to enhance Namibia’s compliance with the relevant Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Standards and thereby exit the grey list as quickly as possible. This week's round of training will build on the foundation laid by the first in July. In July, the participants learnt about the Concepts and process of financial intelligence analysis, Information evaluation, strategic analysis, Effective use of intelligence – that is, converting intelligence into evidence and on esaamlg good practices and guidelines on financial intelligence analysis. This week, the training will focus on Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards and requirements on Money laundering and terrorist financing investigation and prosecution; the Techniques and tools of Money laundering and terrorist financing investigation; Parallel financial investigation, Asset tracing, freezing and confiscation, Multiagency cooperation and information sharing among many other relevant topics. We are thankful to all the support provided by the Namibian Financial Intelligence Centre in jointly organising this training. Silke Höfs , programme officer at the EU Delegation to Namibia graced the opening ceremony this morning, together with Gerrit C Eiman, the Deputy Director of Namibia's Financial Intelligence Centre. Leading our project in Windhoek this week is Frederic Bayard, the project team leader and Tuemay Aregawi. We are also very lucky to have highly experienced trainers for the week, Jacinta Oduor and Muluken Yirga Dubale #training #FATF #moneylaundering #investigations #namibia #eu #followthemoney #prosecution #assetrecovery #esaamlg

Our project team leader Frédéric Bayard and senior technical advisor, Alma Wanyama, are in Zimbabwe to hold high level meetings with Zimbabwe's officials. Yesterday, they met representatives from Zimbabwe's National Prosecution Service, the Anti-Corruption Commission, the Financial Intelligence Unit and the National Police. Among other issues, they discussed support in the development of a Handbook on National Inter-agency Guidelines on the Investigation and Prosecution of Money Laundering, Terrorism and Terrorist Financing. They also discussed the development of a national Training Curriculum on Financial Investigations. The Director General of the Zimbabwe FIU, Oliver Chiperesa stated that with Zimbabwe first in line to be assessed in the upcoming 3rd round of mutual evaluations by esaamlg org, there was an urgent need for the country to address gaps in its AML-CFT regime, including improving inter-agency cooperation and coordination. The development of the Guidelines Handbook and the training curriculum on Financial Investigations would help the country achieve this goal. The Zimbabwean officials expressed that they were fully committed to the process and were ready to start the development of these two documents as soon as possible. #zimbabwe #europeanunion #civipol #financialinvestigations #curriculumdevelopment #training #fatf #greylist #esaamlg #followthemoney Tuemay Aregawi Michael Black Paul Gitobu

Yesterday, at the ongoing esaamlg's 48th Task Force Meeting of the Senior Officials meeting, CIVIPOL and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH shared a podium to present to member states the upcoming European Union-led action for Africa, dubbed SECFIN. SECFIN will contribute to the fight against IFFs linked to transnational organised crime, money laundering and terrorism financing with the goal of increasing domestic resources mobilisation, stabilisation and security in Sub-Saharan Africa. The project, funded by the European Union, Germany🇩🇪 and France🇫🇷 for 4 years, will work in 49 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The SECFIN project is slated to start activities in the last quarter of this year. Kathinka Kurz, representing Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, also presented a new regional programme, in partnership with the Africa Union, which will strengthen development financing by combating illicit financial flows and effective debt management in Africa. This project is commissioned by the German government. Paul Gitobu spoke on behalf of CIVIPOL and the AML CFT ESCAY Project. #cooperation #Africa #TeamEurope #IFFs #financialintelligence #organisedcrime #development #security #esaamlgat25 Frederic BAYARD Alma Wanyama Tuemay Aregawi Paul Gitobu Michael Black Juliet M. Quentin Sagot

We are in Diani, Kenya🇰🇪 for esaamlg org's 48th Task Force Meeting of the Senior Officials, 24th Council of Ministers Meetings, the 7th Public Private Sector Dialogue and esaamlg org's Silver Jubilee celebrations! The meetings were officially launched this morning at a beautiful ceremony presided over by the guest of honour, Hon Dr Chris Kiptoo, the Principal Secretary at Kenya's National Treasury. Also leading the ceremony this morning were Mr SAITOTI maika, the president of the Task Force of senior officials as well as the Director General of Kenya's Financial Reporting Centre; and Ms Fikile Zitha, esaamlg's executive secretary. The meetings have brought together heads of FIUs from member countries and hundreds of other delegates from the eastern and southern Africa region. We are honoured to participate in this event, which among many topics, will consider the fintech situation and developments in the eastern and southern region, future prioritised training needs for the region's institutions, and consider needs submitted by member States. While we are here, we shall hold bilateral talks with our partners, thanking them for the partnership we have enjoyed over the last 9 years. We will also reiterate our commitment to continue our work, this time based in South Africa and covering countries in the southern Africa region. With continued support from the European Union, we will work jointly with our partners Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, who will cover the eastern Africa region, and closely collaborate with esaamlg org. Representing our AML CFT ESCAY Project in Diani this week is our senior technical advisor, Alma Wanyama and our project coordinator, Paul Gitobu With Frédéric BAYARD Tuemay Aregawi Michael Black Financial Action Task Force (FATF) #esaamlgat25 #silverjubliee #moneylaundering #africa #europeanunion #followthemoney #FIU #financialintelligence

Our senior technical advisor, Alma Wanyama has just returned from Kampala, Uganda, attending a two-day regional Conference on Countering the Financing of Terrorism and Safeguarding Civic Space in Sub-Saharan Africa. This two-day conference assembled over 100 delegates from across Africa including representatives of the Non-Profit organisations, academia, Financial Intelligence Units officers, NGO Regulators, Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Regional Style Bodies, African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) among others. Organised by the Civic Advisory Hub, the conference sought to bring together the relevant stakeholders to deliberate on how to collaborate in countering the Financing of Terrorism while safeguarding civic space within sub-Sahara Africa. As AML-CFT ESCAY Project, we were honoured to be invited to this forum, and to join hands with other agencies working towards strengthening Africa's AML-CFT frameworks and disrupting illicit financial flows from and into the continent. With funding from the European Union, we work with over 30 countries across Africa to achieve this very goal. #civilsociety #counterterrorism #multiagency #cooperation #followthemoney #europeanunion #uganda #fiu #fatf Frédéric BAYARD Alma Wanyama Tuemay Aregawi Paul Gitobu Michael Black

Neil Bennett has been an integral part of the process in our effort to assist countries to develop a national curriculum on Financial Investigations. With continued support from the European Commission, Kenya🇰🇪, Uganda🇺🇬, Tanzania🇹🇿, Malawi🇲🇼 and Zambia🇲🇼 have completed and validated the curricula they developed, ready for use in their police and prosecution training academies. Most recently in Uganda, to complete the process, we brought together the teams from the 5 countries to be trained as trainers, equipping them with the tools to facilitate the roll out of the curricula in their respective institutions. Neil Bennett was with us, and spoke to us on the sidelines of the ToT workshop in Entebbe. Here's our interview 👇 #amlcftescay #civipol #eu #curriculum #training #financialinvestigations #followthemoney #TOT #africa #illicitfinancialflows #organisedcrime #moneylaundering Frédéric BAYARD Alma Wanyama Paul Gitobu Tuemay Aregawi Desta Michael Black

HOT OFF THE PRESS! Watch Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC)'s coverage of the closing ceremony of our just concluded week-long training and technical assistance to Namibia's officials! #training #technicalassistance #europeanunion #namibia #africa #moneylaundering #fatf #followthemoney Frédéric BAYARD Tuemay Aregawi Desta Nina Thècle Paul Gitobu Alma Wanyama 👇 https://lnkd.in/gaSCkZPU

We recently hosted Ms Stella Attakpah at our offices in Nairobi. Ms Stella A. , a former head of the Law Enforcement department at the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA), was in Nairobi, on assignment for the European Commission, to review the comparative performance of east Africa countries, in regards to their respective AML/CFT frameworks. She was looking at progress made in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia - to review and discuss possible ways of enhancing the integration of AML/CFT measures in sectors such as private finance and security, in the said countries. After our meeting, in which our team presented the achievements of our AML CFT ESCAY Project in the region, we spoke to Ms Stella A. on camera, where she laid out her mission. Watch our interview with Stella A. below 👇 #security #finance #moneylaundering #amlcft #compliance #fatfstandards #europeanunion #eastafrica Frédéric BAYARD Tuemay Aregawi Desta Alma Wanyama Paul Gitobu Michael Black Nina Thècle

With our webinar on virtual assets and cryptocurrency done last week, we have this week embarked on our training on International Cooperation and Information Sharing on Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, Illicit Financial Flows and Asset Recovery. This week's training is for English speaking countries within our area of coverage. We hosted a similar training about 2 weeks ago for our beneficiary French speaking countries. International cooperation and information sharing among countries on organised crime, #moneylaundering, #terroristfinancing, #corruption and #Illicitfinancial flows is key in fighting these crimes. Perpetrators of these crimes are organised and know no borders; as such, public officials and law enforcement agencies fighting these crimes need to be organised and to work together across borders. According to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) consolidated assessment rating, all assessed countries of east, central and southern Africa region are rated either low or medium in regard to international information sharing and cooperation. This calls for the strengthening of national capacities to embrace international cooperation and information sharing. We have over 150 participants from 11 countries at this week's training, drawn from Financial Intelligence Units, Law Enforcement Agencies, Public Prosecution Authorities, National Central Authorities for international cooperation and Asset Recovery Agencies in our partner and beneficiary countries. Like all our other training activities, this week's workshop is supported by the European Commission. The participants are learning the basics and concepts of mutual legal assistance and extradition, international cooperation on criminal matters among many other subjects. By the end of the week, our objective is to have helped and equipped the participants and their respective countries in their fight against illicit financial flows generated by trans national organised crimes. #eu #africa #CIVIPOL #financialintelligence #fatfrecommendation #organisedcrimes #legalassistance #cooperation #assetrecovery #followthemoney Frédéric BAYARD Tuemay Aregawi Desta Alma Wanyama Paul Gitobu Nina Thècle Michael Black

With part of our team still in 🇳🇦Namibia for the week to offer technical assistance to Namibian officials in order to address #AML-CFT gaps that led to the country's grey-listing; another part of our team is at the same time running a webinar on Virtual Assets - Analysis, Investigation, Tracing and Confiscation of Cryptocurrencies' This is the second webinar this quarter that we're running on Virtual assets/cryptocurrencies. The first one, last month, was for Francophone countries and this week's is for English speaking countries within our AML CFT ESCAY project's area of coverage. The growing nexus between #terrorism and transnational #organisedcrime and the use of emerging technologies have complicated global efforts to curb organised crime. The emerging and fast growing virtual assets or #cryptocurrencies have become widely accepted. Criminals and #terrorists have found innovative ways to use cryptocurrencies to launder their proceeds of crime, move funds and finance criminal operations easily. With support from the European Commission, our training this week seeks to equip public officers with understanding the meaning and functions of cryptocurrencies and the methods of transactions and storage in order for them to effectively prevent and counter the risks of money laundering. The officials taking this training are expected to carry out cryptocurrency tracing and seizure in their line of duty. They include financial intelligence analysts, law enforcement agency investigators and compliance officers among others. #crypto #virtualassets #followthemoney #EU #africa #training #financialintelligence #lawenforcement #organisedcrime With Frédéric BAYARD Tuemay Aregawi Desta Ruth Watetu Paul Gitobu Alma Wanyama Michael Black