Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to inaugurate International Conference on ‘Networking the Networks’ tomorrow
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley
to inaugurate International Conference on ‘Networking the Networks’ tomorrow;
three day conference to deal with issues of Illicit financial flows from drugs,
human trafficking and tax fraud etc. and establishment of a regional
coordination mechanism for intelligence sharing in criminal matters
The Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley will
inaugurate the three day International Conference on ‘Networking the Networks’
in the national Capital tomorrow.
The proposal to hold the ‘Networking the Networks’
meeting in India was agreed during the last visit of the Executive Director,
UNODC to India on 3rd December, 2014 and his meeting with the
Revenue Secretary.
Subsequently, the
Executive Director, UNODC also met the Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley
and expressed his sincere appreciation for concurring to hold this
International Conference in India. He has also reaffirmed UNODC’s
readiness to further extend support to India and the region in countering
trans-national organized crime and promoting drug prevention, treatment and
care among vulnerable population groups. He has suggested that this could
start with:
(i) India hosting a “Networking
the Networks” event on illicit money flows involving financial intelligence
units from the region and beyond, as well as,
(ii) The establishment of a
regional coordination mechanism for intelligence sharing in criminal
matters.
(i) Networking the Networks
This Conference is relevant in the context that South
Asia region is vulnerable to the illicit financial flows from drugs, human
trafficking, tax fraud etc. Informal money transfer systems are also
popular in the world and can be easily misused by the criminal networks for the
transfer of crime proceeds, as well as for terrorism financing.
One of the ways to effectively combat the criminal
networks is to disrupt their financial flows. But the criminal networks are of
transnational nature and money movements are executed very fast. So to combat
these criminal networks and their illicit financial flows, law enforcement
agencies need fast operational cooperation with their foreign partners, and
capacities to deal with the financial crimes.
There are different regional organizations for law
enforcement cooperation – e.g. Central Asian Regional Information and
Coordination Center (CARICC), Southeast European Law Enforcement Center (SELEC)
etc. But their capacities are not fully utilized for tracing of illicit financial
flows and for the law enforcement – financial intelligence cooperation.
UNODC recent
initiative “Networking the Networks” (especially its component on illicit
financial flows) targets these two goals:
- Connect the existing
international and regional law enforcement cooperation centres to enable fast
inter-regional cooperation;
- Use the capacities of these
networks to disrupt organized crime and the illicit financial flows related to
it through the exchange of intelligence and providing platform for coordination
of joint/parallel operations
Objective
The meeting will bring together law enforcement senior
officials, as well as representatives of the existing global networks and
successful regional networks from other regions, who can share their experience
on combating illicit financial flows.
The meeting will help to identify the best practices of
the existing international organizations and regional platforms for fast
cooperation on illicit financial flows and capacity building. These practices
will cover a wide range of issues: organization and set-up of regional
networks, connection between various networks, new methodologies to disrupt
illicit financial flows, capacity building, use of IT tools, international and
interagency cooperation.
Participants will also produce recommendations on best
practices and solutions which can be applied to the nascent South Asia Regional
Information and Coordination Center (SARICC)
(ii) SARICC
The proposal for creation of regional platform for
exchange of information/ intelligence on drug trafficking and related matters
such as money laundering etc., with India in the lead, for the South Asian
region was discussed during the visit of Executive Director of UNODC in . This
platform would initially comprise the founding members Bangladesh, Bhutan,
Myanmar, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka besides India, and later on would be
open to inclusion of other countries/ international organization as decided by
the founding members, based on shared concerns.
Because of its geographical
position – sandwiched between two of the major illicit opium and heroin
producing regions of the world (Afghanistan to our North West and Myanmar to
our East), India has been a victim of drug trafficking originating in these
countries for several years. This is impacting the health and moral fiber of
the society, besides leading to generation of black money and providing fillip
to other criminal activities. Therefore, creation of a regional cooperation
mechanism among countries of the region, which have shared interest in curbing
drug trafficking in this region, is in India’s interest. Further, the
international community has high expectations of India’s leadership role in
this regard in the region. During the recent visit of the Executive Director of
the UNODC to India, he expressed the expectation that India should emerge as
the leading player in the area of anti-drug trafficking and other related
transnational organized crimes, not only in this region but also beyond
especially in view of the fact of increase in illicit poppy cultivation in
Afghanistan and Myanmar and manufacture of synthetic drugs in Myanmar. He
was accordingly keen to have discussions at the strategic level in India as
regards the initiatives which India could take in this matter.
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