A meeting of the Council of Heads of Financial Intelligence Units of the member States of the Commonwealth of Independent States was held on September 30 in Sochi.
The meeting was attended by representatives of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The delegation of the CIS Executive Committee at the meeting was headed by Director of the Department for Security Cooperation Yevgeny Klemez.
Addressing the participants of the meeting, Yevgeny Klemez noted that despite the complication of the situation in the world, financial intelligence units and the Council as a whole are taking effective measures to ensure transparency of financial flows and make a worthy contribution to maintaining security in the Commonwealth.
He recalled that in November last year, the Council of Permanent Plenipotentiaries of the Commonwealth Member States to the statutory and Other CIS bodies reviewed Information on the activities of the SRPF for 2018-2022 and highly appreciated it.
Currently, according to Yevgeny Klemez, the Council is working on an important project – creating an International Center for Assessing the Risks of Money Laundering and terrorist financing. The agreement on its formation was signed by the heads of the CIS states in October last year.
This project completely changes the approaches to the organization of counteraction to shadow sites. The center becomes a single information space and provides an increased level of interaction. The infrastructure has been created, shared resources are being formed and access to them is provided.
“But at the same time, we understand that the results achieved over eleven years are the result not only of systematic work to improve the regulatory framework for cooperation, but also of the daily painstaking practical activities of every “ordinary financial intelligence officer,” said Yevgeny Klemez.
He also expressed gratitude to the Council members for their effective participation in the implementation of CIS interstate programs in the field of strengthening security. The CIS Executive Committee notes the high effectiveness of Operation Barrier, in which other CIS sectoral cooperation bodies successfully cooperate.
“The Council works dynamically and consistently in the field of personnel training and, in particular, its basic organization is the International Educational and Methodological Center for Financial Monitoring. It is his activity that makes it possible to hold the International Financial Security Olympiad on a large scale for the fourth time,” the director of the department added.
The participants of the meeting discussed issues of interaction between the financial intelligence units of the CIS countries with law enforcement agencies and bodies of sectoral cooperation of the Commonwealth.
The members of the Council were recommended to take part in joint events of the CIS sectoral cooperation bodies and CIS interstate programs implemented in the field of countering the laundering (legalization) of proceeds from crime and the financing of terrorism. It was also decided to prepare proposals for the organization of events in 2025 with the participation of national law enforcement agencies (meetings, round tables, seminars, trainings, etc.) on these issues for the next meeting of the Council.
It is planned that the next meeting of the Council of Heads of Financial Intelligence Units will be held in November this year simultaneously with the 41st Plenary Meeting of the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing.
