The Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering

Calendar of Events > Sub-regional workshop on Cash Couriers & Suspicious Transaction Reporting

Sub-regional workshop on Cash Couriers & Suspicious Transaction Reporting

14 May, 2012

The Government of Tonga will be hosting two back-to-back workshops from 14-18 May 2012:

The sub-regional workshop on the Control of the Cross-Border Movement of Cash and Bearer Negotiable Instruments. This is to be organized by the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), in close cooperation with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC), the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Asia/Pacific Group on Money laundering (APG).

This will be the second of a series of sub-regional workshops with the aim of raising members’ awareness of, firstly, the risks of illicit cross-border funds movement and, secondly, the available international instruments, standards and recommended practices developed to effectively counter these movements. The workshop will thereby enable members to put in place measures that will also deliver benefits in areas that extend beyond illicit movement of money and include countering organised crime cross-border activity.

The sub-regional workshop on Suspicious Transaction Reporting. This workshop will be organised by the APG and AUSTRAC.

This workshop follows on from the cash courier work and focuses on enhancing the quality of suspicious transaction reporting and the use of FIU data by law enforcement agencies. The workshop aims to improve STR reporting in the region, as a key preventative measure that will directly contribute to authorities’ abilities to investigate and prosecute ML, TF, and other crimes, and to ‘follow the money’, including criminal and terrorist assets. One focus of the workshop will be how law enforcement and FIUs can improve their feedback to and cooperation with financial institutions to improve the quality and quantity of STR reporting.

Please note: these workshops were originally scheduled to take place in February 2012, but have now been re-scheduled to May 2012. Persons previously contacted regarding the workshops will be contacted again in due course regarding their participation.