Strengthening the Fight Against Money Laundering and Terrorism

Belize’s National Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Conference is back for its second year of activities. The annual conference aims to engage stakeholders from the public and private sectors in conversation with compliance officers and regulatory authorities to educate them on the threats posed by money laundering and engage in dialogue on how to collectively combat the funding of terrorism. News Five’s Britney Gordon attended the opening ceremony today to learn how this year’s activities will support financial integrity and economic growth. Here’s that report.

 

Britney Gordon, Reporting

Belize is strengthening its endeavor to combat money laundering and threat of terrorism within the country by hosting the second annual Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Conference. Minister of Home Affairs, Kareem Musa told us how this year’s conference is working towards forging a more secure Belize.

 

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs

“I think over the last decade the word de risking blacklisting, these are all words that have become very commonplace. We all understand what it means for financial systems, for banking sector. And so we have to ensure as best as possible that we do not make our way on any of these lists and we do not put ourselves in a position to get any derisking. And so that is the importance of these events to ensure that we continue on this right path passing legislation, implementing a lot of training for officers and the different agencies not only to investigate, but to successfully prosecute crimes such as the unexplained wealth orders, civil asset recovery, all of these things, again, geared towards ensuring that we stay on the correct path.”

 

Over one hundred and fifty participants will attend in person, and over four hundred will do so virtually. A range of topics will be covered, including tax evasion, corruption mitigation strategies, and money laundering indicators. Leni Ysaguirre McGann, Director of the Financial Intelligence Unit, says the participants will engage in break out sessions for more in-depth analysis.

 

Leni Ysaguirre McGann, Director, FIU

“So the conference, really as our theme suggests, is to talk about how we can collaborate together, to talk about how innovation impacts the work that we do, and to have open and frank discussions about that, and also to hear about some experts in their specific fields that concern, for example, cybercrime.  So we’ll be talking about cyber threats, cyber security. And the idea is to raise awareness amongst our participants. We have specific breakout rooms for law enforcement. So we’ll be going over simulation activities. The first part of it is targeted for law enforcement. We’ll be running it again and opening it up to all private sector participants. The idea is to target the specific needs of law enforcement. We’ll be talking about cyber issues with them and as well as case studies on how to do certain investigative tactics and demonstrations. So we’re quite excited that we’re able to incorporate breakout sessions in this year’s conference and to target certain sectors and their specific needs.”

 

The conference serves as an opportunity for experts to speak to both the private sector and the public sector about the importance of combating financial crimes and build those skills so that we can do a better job of protecting both the United States and Belize. Heath Bailey, Chief of Economic Section in the U.S. Embassy told us how the embassy plans to assist Belize with this endeavor through collaboration with the National Anti-Money Laundering Council and the FIU.

 

 

Heath Bailey, Chief of Economic Sections, U.S. Embassy

“Money laundering is a technical crime. And so you have to develop the technical expertise to do that. One of the things that we do at the U.S. Embassy is we provide funding to build that capacity through training through capacity building. For example, we fund full time advisor who’s embedded with the financial intelligence unit to help them build their capacity to conduct these very complicated financial investigations.”

 

 

Britney Gordon for News Five.