Cursus witwassen gehouden in Rome (en)

Italy hosted CEPOL course “06-2012 Money Laundering” on 17-20 April 2012. The activity was held in Rome’s inter-agency college for advanced studies, the “Scuola di Perfezionamento per le Forze di Polizia”. At the helm of this training activity was the Guardia di Finanza, Italy’s police corps specialised in financial and economic matters. Absolutely essential to the success of the course were the contributions received from Europol and the support of Belgium.

Money laundering is one of the most relevant threats to world economies and, in a broader sense, to the fundamentals of democratic states. It is the final phase of a wide range of crimes and has relevant trans-national involvement. It should not come as a surprise that the fight against money laundering is a priority set both by the Stockholm Programme and Europol’s OCTA reports.

Twenty-nine participants from 19 Member States attended the course. The event, coordinated by Col. Giancarlo Trotta, was opened with presentations by Gen. Michele Carbone and Maj. Maurizio Querqui, from the Guardia di Finanza Headquarters. They respectively presented “Activity of the Guardia di Finanza in the fight against Money Laundering” and “Money Laundering Techniques”.

During the following days high level lecturers took the floor. Prof. Michele Riccardi, University of Milan’s Cattolica University and Transcrime (Joint Research Centre on Transnational Crime) discussed “The identification of beneficial owners in the fight against money laundering” whilst Dr. Giuseppe Maresca, Head of Unit within the Italian Treasury Department, lectured about “The role of the Financial Action Task Force”.

External experts Maj. Igor Angelini, Head of Unit at Europol, and Comm. Veerle De Wolf from the Belgian Police presented “Financial Intelligence and Money Laundering” and “Belgian Department for the Fight against Financial and Economic Crime”. Both presentations were highly appreciated by all of the courses participants.

Participants were kept busy in the afternoons with case studies and entailing discussions led by Cpt. Francesco Paolo Davide, Cpt. Luca Meoli and Cpt. Francesco De Lellis. The courses final activity was a study visit to the Nucleo Speciale Polizia Valutaria of the Guardia di Finanza Corps.

At the end of this fully booked course, Rossanna Farina, Course Manager and Head of the Italian CEPOL Unit, stated that “The expectations of those who took part in the course were fully met and Italy is committed to taking care of updating CEPOL’s Money Laundering Common Curriculum and will be applying to organise this course in 2013 too”.