OSCE official urges Central Asia states to unite against terrorism financing, money laundering

BISHKEK, August 19 (Itar-Tass) - Central Asian countries should pool efforts and intensify co-ordination against money laundering and terrorism financing, an OSCE official said on Tuesday. The countries of the region should continue the programme to work out financial measures to combat these crimes, John MacGregor, acting head of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) centre in Bishkek said in Cholpon-Ata at a forum of the heads of financial intelligence services of the Central Asian states, India, Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, China and Belarus. Countering such threats requires joint efforts of all the parties concerned, he said. Because, he added, “not a single state” can combat these threats alone. MacGregor said Kyrgyzstan, thanks to the efforts of its leadership, 1.5 months ago was excluded from the “grey list” of countries, having strategic shortcomings in the creation of the system of combating terrorism financing and money laundering. However, the republic has yet much to do to achieve good results in combating financial crimes. He therefore pledged to continue the provision of assistance to Kyrgyzstan in the strengthening of its potential to introduce modern methods of the prevention, investigation and combating financial crimes. According to OSCE, the world economy suffers annual damage worth 400 billion U.S. dollars from cyber crimes. Experts say that a big portion on these funds is later channelled for the support of terrorist organisations, including Al Qaeda and Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Russia’s delegation at the expert meeting in Cholpon-Ata, organised by the OSCE and Eurasian Group, is headed by head of a department of the Financial Monitoring Service (FFMS) Igor Voluyevich. The Russian official said only close co-ordination of efforts of all the states makes the fight against cyber crimes efficient. “Crimes in the cyberspace are latent and transnational, their exposure is difficult and they cause major damage,” he said. “Therefore, co-operation of financial intelligence services of various states makes the fight against these crimes much more successful.” Learn more on itar-tass.com