Stakeholders from about twenty (20) anti-graft institutions – including law enforcement agencies, tax authorities, regulatory institutions, and prosecutorial bodies – recently benefited from a two-week advanced financial investigation training in Liberia. The training was supported technically and financially by the European Union (EU) SecFin Africa programme, under its Country Level Support – Pillar One: “Strengthen AML/CFT compliance and effectiveness by providing tailored, demand-driven technical assistance and training.” The training covers topics such as detection, assessment, investigation, prosecution, and asset recovery – through a “multi-agency approach, ensuring alignment with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards.
This capacity-building opportunity was critical to addressing the long-standing knowledge gap and limited technical skills to effectively analyze complex Terrorist Financing cases and other financial crimes confronting Liberia’s AML/CFT regime and competent authorities. Also, the deficiency has been highlighted by the Inter-Governmental Action Group Against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) in its report on the country’s second Round of Mutual Evaluation Report (MER2) in May 2023.
With this training and inter-agency collaboration and coordination, Liberia can effectively fast-track and enhance its AML/CFT investigations and improve the quality of Financial Intelligence Reports (FIRs). The knowledge gained from the technical capacity-development training is also expected to remove barriers that “hampered investigation and recovery of assets of illicit origin”’ as well as strengthen international cooperation – including fast-tracking international requests for mutual legal assistance – which have long experienced slow-pace processing and procedural errors, often resulting in decade-long asset recovery procedures in Liberia and South Saharan Africa.
Additionally, the training will enable AML/CFT authorities to address the core domestic predicate offences generating money laundering in Liberia – including corruption and bribery, illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, tax evasion, currency counterfeiting, trafficking in human beings and migrants smuggling, counterfeiting and piracy of products, and robbery/ theft, etc.
Participants of the SecFin financial investigation training were drawn from the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC), Liberia Immigration Service (LIS), Liberia National Police (LNP), National Security Agency of Liberia (NSA), Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Labor, Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA), Liberia Business Registry, and the Financial Intelligence Agency of Liberia (FIA).
In his remark at the closing ceremony of the training initiative in Monrovia, the Officer-In-Charge of the Financial Intelligence Agency of Liberia (FIA) – Mohammed A. Nasser, lauded European Union SecFin Africa project for its support towards strengthening Liberia’s AML/CFT regime in combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and other illicit financial activities.
OIC Nasser noted the need to enhance the technical capacity of competent authorities could not be overemphasized as far as the country’s commitment to enforcing robust AML/CFT measures is concerned – not only to protect Liberia’s financial system from abuse, but to also help contribute to efforts aimed at protecting the global financial system.
The FIA boss admonished participants that “the key goal is following the money to the point of confiscation, and to deprive criminals from using the proceeds of crime.” He also stressed the issue of inter-agency collaboration and coordination, adding that “no one agency can fight financial crimes alone.
“The knowledge you gained from this training is not yours. You learned it for your country”, the OIC concluded.
Meanwhile, beneficiaries of the training expressed enthusiasm and renewed energies powered by the enhanced skills they have acquired to be more proactive and professional in their fight against financial crimes in Liberia.
“We are thankful to European Union and our facilitators for this training. We learned a lot and hope we can get more of these training opportunities, said one of the participants who spoke on behalf of the group.
SecFin is the European Union’s continental project, which aims to support Sub-Saharan African countries in preventing and combating illicit financial flows (IFFs) linked to transnational organized crime (TOC), by strengthening anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) efforts, consistent with international standards.
The project’s core objective is to “strengthen AML/CFT compliance and effectiveness by providing tailored, demand-driven technical assistance and training covering the entire process—from detection, assessment, investigation, asset recovery, prosecution and drafting of the judgement—through a multi-agency approach, ensuring alignment with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards.”