The Action “Promoting Transparency and Action against Economic Crime” in Central Asia organised a four-day training activity in cooperation with the Law Enforcement Academy under the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Academy) to support the training capacities of the relevant competent authorities to conduct effective training activities on financial investigations to prevent and fight economic crimes.

The training activity also addressed the recommendations in the GRECO Evaluation Report on Kazakhstan (March 2022) regarding the coordination among all law enforcement authorities combating corruption, in particular to ensure efficient financial investigations and training and specialisation of prosecutors and judges as regards corruption offences, financial investigations and their links with other offences, such as money laundering and organised crime.

The training was attended by 16 representatives of the Academy, Financial Monitoring Agency, Anti-Corruption Agency and the General Prosecutor’s Office, who improved their knowledge and skills to plan and conduct effective financial investigations. The activity also helped them improve their understanding of financial investigation as a process, and as a multi-stakeholder endeavour requiring coordination and cooperation among various agencies. Participants also learned the good practices in managing different phases of the financial investigation process by working on real case scenarios in an interactive learning environment.

This activity was organised by the Action on “Promoting Transparency and Action against Economic Crime” in the framework of the Central Asia Rule of Law Programme 2020-2023, which is a joint initiative co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe. The Action is aimed at strengthening capacities to fight and prevent economic crime in five Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan).