WORKSHOP HELD TO IMPROVE CAPACITY OF OFFICERS TO INVESTIGATE AND PROSECUTE MONEY LAUNDERING OFFENCES

Basseterre, St. Kitts, January 21, 2022 (RSCNPF): Several Police Officers from a number of departments and units benefited, this week, from a workshop to improve their capacity to investigate and prosecute money laundering cases as it relates to a variety of offences.

The workshop was the result of a collaboration between the Office of the Commissioner of Police of The Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force (RSCNPF) and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP). The half-day session was also facilitated by the DPP, Valston Graham.

The move came as a result of the mutual evaluation that was recently done on the Federation by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF). According to Commissioner of Police Hilroy Brandy, although there is a unit in the Police Force dedicated to conducting money laundering investigations, it is imperative that all officers are able to deal with such offences.

“One of the issues which was highlighted by the assessment team was the approach to investigating and prosecuting money laundering offences by law enforcement agencies. The assessors noted that we have not been ‘aggressively’ prosecuting money laundering offences and conducting asset recovery,” Commissioner Brandy explained.

He added that as the primary law enforcement agency in St. Kitts and Nevis, it was important for the RSCNPF to develop policies and to host training sessions to enable Officers to meet international obligations. The workshop is one of several intended to be held over the coming months.

The CFATF is an organisation comprising of twenty-four (24) States in the Caribbean Basin, Central and South America who have agreed to implement common countermeasures to address the problem of Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and the Financing of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

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