Participants at the workshop on the Role of Prosecutors in the Fight against Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, in Kadoma, from 30 to 31 October 2019.
AML/CFT Workshop on the Role of Prosecutors in Combatting Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing.
For a country to achieve higher levels of effectiveness in combatting money laundering and terrorist financing, it is imperative that all the three arms of the criminal justice system, namely law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and judiciary, play their respective roles, effectively.
The Financial Intelligence Unit of Zimbabwe, in conjunction with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, has been conducting AML/CFT workshops for law enforcement agencies, as part of efforts to increase their effectiveness in conducting parallel financial investigations, and non-conviction based money laundering investigations. The three arms of the criminal justice system have welcomed these trainings, and have called for the extension of such, to prosecutors, judges and magistrates.
Informed by findings of the 2015 mutual evaluation of Zimbabwe, which identified low levels of effectiveness within prosecutors, magistrates and judges, in carrying out their respective AML/CFT duties, the Financial Intelligence Unit organized a two-day workshop for prosecutors, which was held under the theme “Ensuring Crime Does Not Pay – Role of Prosecutors”. The workshop was held at Kadoma Hotel and Conference Centre from the 30th to the 31st of October 2019. Ministry of Finance and Economic Development sponsored the workshop.
A total of fifty-five (55) prosecutors attended the workshop. All the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) offices countrywide, were represented. Presenters at the workshop were: senior FIU officials, Chief Law Officers of the NPA, Regional Magistrate and a senior official of the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC).
Participants were taken through section 8 of the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Act [09:24], which criminalizes money laundering. Prosecutors agreed to adopt the prosecutor-led investigations approach for ML and other related financial crimes investigations. Under this approach, the prosecutor gives advice and guidance to the investigator. Prosecutors were called upon to thoroughly read the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Act [09:24], and awareness of this nature, is to be extended to prosecutors who were not in attendance.
The workshop took note of the need for government to increase remunerations of investigators, prosecutors and judiciary, who are highly vulnerable to corruption, by offenders of the financial crimes, which usually involve huge sums of money. Prosecutors in attendance also called for the decentralization of the National Prosecuting Authority Asset Forfeiture Unit to all provinces, so as to increase its presence and effectiveness.
The workshop lived up to its expectations as it managed to address areas of interest, of the participants, and come up with concrete action plans, which, if implemented, will see an increase in ML prosecutions, convictions and recovery of proceeds of crime. Going forward, AML/CFT capacity building workshops of this nature will be extended to judges and magistrate in year 2020, and more trainings and refresher courses will be conducted for law enforcement agencies and prosecutors.