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WCO conducts AML-CTF Mentoring for Nepal Customs

16 января 2025

The World Customs Organization (WCO) conducted a mentoring programme between 25 November 2024 – 13 December 2024 to enhance the Anti-Money Laundering capacity of Nepal Customs. The 3-week programme was organized as part of Project OCTAGON, a key component of the WCO’s Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML-CTF) Programme, to build the capacity of Members to fight organized crime, money laundering and terrorism financing within the Customs arena and create heightened awareness in the national customs about AML-CTF.

The training and mentorship initiative of Project OCTAGON is a three-pronged effort to combat money laundering activities and predicate offenses that generate the illicit funds as follows:

  1. First, Capacity building efforts are conducted for frontline Customs officers to counter financial crime occurring in the Customs realm, with emphasis on the predicate offenses of bulk cash smuggling, smuggling of precious metals, environmental crime, cultural heritage trafficking, weapons and restricted technology trafficking and narcotics trafficking, as well as professional money laundering networks (PMLNs) and Trade-based Money Laundering (TBML);
  2. Second, the targeted Customs administrations are also trained in financial intelligence and TBML targeting. A major focus of this mentorship will be bridging the Customs interdiction and coordination with the Financial Intelligence Units; and,
  3. Third, the mentorship also envisages development of actionable interdiction and seizure data to be incorporated into the WCO FinCRIME Online Library and the Customs Enforcement Network (CEN) system. This third line-of-effort will be designed to provide actionable global intelligence to the Customs and Police communities vis-à-vis transnational organized crime activities occurring at international borders.

As part of its Nepal Mentoring initiative, a team from Project OCTAGON including two AML-CTF experts visited various Customs controls points in Nepal to better understand the risks prevalent there and to identify gaps that posed challenges for effective enforcement action. Thereafter, an in-depth training workshop on AML-CTF was conducted for 25 officers of Nepal Customs. This included classroom discussions, case studies and practical exercises for the officers with real-life examples. The mentoring concluded with a roundtable conducted by the WCO to initiate improved coordination and cooperation between the law enforcement agencies - Nepal Customs; the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Nepal; and the Department of Money Laundering Investigation, involved in fighting money laundering and terrorism-financing.

The WCO is committed to continuing its support to its Members in the global fight against money laundering and terrorism financing. Through the mentoring efforts organized through Project OCTAGON, the WCO can support Customs administrations in enhancing their effectiveness in fighting these major concerns. For more information, please contact project.octagon@wcoomd.org.