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Description
The project has two main goals. The first is to increase the capacity of the Police of the Czech Republic (PCR) to fight against corruption, anti-money laundering, and combating terrorist financing. The second is to improve the capacity of the PCR to catch up with the latest developments on identifying illegal activities.
The MONEYVAL report 2018 stated several recommendations for the PCR:
- to enhance the quality of cooperation between PCR and the Financial Analytical Office (FIU),
- to increase the number of convictions for money laundering cases, and
- to enhance the training of the financial investigators.
The project aims to deepen the qualifications of the National Organized Crime Agency‘s (NOCA) experts in the fight against corruption, anti-money laundering, and combating terrorist financing and to provide them with modern IT tools to fight these types of criminal offences. The project also focuses on enhancing the quality of cooperation between the PCR and the FIU via common trainings together with the Public Prosecutor´s Office representatives. The trainings will result in increased expert knowledge and better interinstitutional cooperation.
Purchase of the special software designed to trace virtual currencies will enable us to fight effectively against virtual currencies'' more and more frequent misuse. Altogether, police experts equipped with high-level qualification and modern software will be able to deal with a sophisticated crime much better than they can do at the moment. We will detect higher numbers of money laundering cases and cases of the use of virtual currencies for illegal purposes. We also aspire to improve the next MONEYVAL evaluation thanks to the project implementation.
Summary of project results
The aim of the project was to increase the professional competence of NOCA specialists in the area of knowledge and expertise in the field of serious crime (corruption, money loundering, terorrism financing), and to provide them with appropriate IT tools. Another aim of the project was to deepen cooperation between the NOCA, the FAU and the Prosecutor General''s Office. The main challenge in the implementation of the project was the global COVID pandemic, which disrupted the project timeframe.
A total of 13 training sessions were held for NOCA staff and other representatives of law enforcement agencies. 3 manuals and 1 ARO handbook were prepared/updated, specialised HW and SW were purchased, 19 NOCA experts participated in conferences on virtual currencies, 8 foreign study trips to selected EU countries and Iceland took place, 3 international ARO meetings took place, and 5 inter-institutional meetings were held. All these activities have deepened the professional competences not only of the NOCA specialists but also of the participating representatives of law enforcement authorities.
The output of the programme is 794 trained NOCA staff, 4 manuals, establishing new contacts with foreign partners during the foreign study trips and strengthening cooperation between the NOCA and other bodies. The project has brought to the end-users a deepening of expertise, establishment of national and international cooperation in the areas of criminal justice activities targeted by the project. All facts are verifiable from continuous reports. The figures are verifiable in respective statistics.