On 22 and 23 December the Mission in Serbia organized the final of a series of four workshops for district economic crime investigators on anti-money laundering aspects of their work. The event gathered 20 investigators from departments for the suppression of economic crime in the police districts of Belgrade, Pancevo, Pozarevac, Sabac, Smederevo, Sremska Mitrovica and Valjevo.
The objective of the workshop was to introduce participants to, inter alia, the legal framework, the concept and typologies of money-laundering and suspicious transaction reports. The workshop focused on case studies, which provided investigators with the opportunity to work on real-case scenarios, resolving challenges and obstacles in collecting evidence of predicate offences, money laundering and financial investigation as an added value to the prosecution of cases. Facilitators included financial crime investigators from the Serbian Criminal Police central level15, one expert from the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Ministry of Finance and two prosecutors, who presented real cases in which investigators and prosecutors worked closely together.
The four workshops allowed the Mission to reach out to economic crime investigators from all 27 police districts in Serbia as part of its effort to build the capacities of local police on money laundering and financial investigation.