A training activity for judiciary and police on processing money laundering cases took place in Kotor, Montenegro on 24-25 February 2021. This training was the second out of three training modules aimed at familiarising judges, prosecutors and police with methods and techniques to handle money laundering cases as well as broader trends and developments in money laundering practices.
The objective of this training module was to widen the scope of the current approach towards investigative measures and to facilitate evaluation of grounds for use of special investigative measures and to improve their application of seizure and freezing of assets in investigation.
The training was tailored to address the needs of the beneficiaries, identified through a detailed questionnaire. The participants were trained using a number of practical exercises, drawing from actual cases from the Netherlands and Italy to put their newly acquired knowledge to the test. The first module of the training was dedicated to identifying and corroborating each individual element of the criminal offence of money laundering, with reference to the Dutch model of establishing criminality, Italian inferential reasoning techniques, and the use of money laundering typologies. Participants were also acquainted with the practice and case law of the European Court of Human Rights in this area.
A representative from the High Court of Montenegro stated that the skills and knowledge acquired during these modules are crucial for improving the track record of processed money laundering cases in Montenegro, and pointed out that a slight increase in cases can be directly attributed to this training programme.
After the third training module, which will be dedicated to informal and formal mutual legal assistance, understanding of forensic evidence, adjudication and sanctioning, the training programme will be adopted by the Judicial Training Centre of Montenegro and the enforcement of this program will be transferred to their trainers. In such way, sustainability of the program will be ensured, and the new generations of judges and prosecutors will be peer-to-peer trained on this issue.
This training was organised within the framework of the EU/Council of Europe Horizontal Facility for Western Balkans and Turkey Phase II – Action against Economic Crime in Montenegro (AEC-MNE).