OSCE Centre in Bishkek supports Eurasian Group regional seminar on combatting cybercrime and money laundering

ISSYK-KUL, Kyrgyzstan, 18 August, 2014 – The OSCE Centre in Bishkek is today supporting the Eurasian Group in hosting a workshop on combatting cybercrime and money laundering for some 50 experts of financial intelligence units and the private sector from five Central Asia states, Belarus, China, India and Russia.

The workshop, in Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan, is designed to support participants in exchanging experiences and identifying areas of strategic partnership and will focus on the international legal framework as well as traditional and modern methods of combatting cybercrime and money laundering.

The Eurasian Group on combatting money laundering and financing of terrorism (EAG) is a regional body in the style of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), uniting nine countries in the region to create an appropriate legal and institutional framework on combatting money laundering and terrorist financing in line with the FATF standards.

The workshop, organized in co-operation with, International Training and Methodology Centre for Financial Monitoring and the Kyrgyz Financial Intelligence Service, aims to bring together best practices and share knowledge from the private sector and financial intelligence units in conducting investigations of financial crimes, high-tech crimes and money laundering.

“The OSCE Centre in Bishkek has been assisting Kyrgyzstan in increasing the capacity of the country’s authorities to combat money laundering and terrorist financing in response to recommendations by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF),”, said John MacGregor, acting head of the OSCE Centre in Bishkek. “Cybercrime is one of the fastest growing challenges in the world and today’s seminar is an important and timely event on the security needs of the future.”

The OSCE Centre in Bishkek is supporting Kyrgyzstan’s financial bodies to adopt modern investigative and countering methods, and implement legislation that addresses the recommendations of the FATF. As a result of the Centre’s assistance, in July 2014, Kyrgyzstan was removed from the FATF’s ‘grey list’ and will no longer be subject to the FATF’s monitoring process under its ongoing global process of compliance with requirements on anti-money laundering and combatting the financing of terrorism.