US State Department holds money laundering, terrorism funding seminar
KUWAIT: A four-day seminar on money laundering and terrorism funding kicked off yesterday at the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI). The event was attended by Minister of Commerce and Industry Khaled Al-Roudhan and US Ambassador to Kuwait Lawrence Silverman. The seminar is entitled ‘Investigating Fraudulent Business Transactions to Prevent Money Laundering and Terrorism Funding’.
“This training will make America and Kuwait more secure,” Silverman said. “Money laundering and terrorism funding must be stopped and addressed properly. We are in this struggle together. When President Donald Trump attended the GCC summit in Riyadh, they all agreed to enhance cooperation in these areas,” he said. “This is implementing what our leader wants us to do. This is a training program but also an exchange of ideas. Your people know things that our people don’t, so there is an exchange of best practices,” he added.
Jill Westmoreland Rose, Resident Legal Adviser at the US Department of Justice, whose work covers Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, noted the Office of Prosecutorial and Training (OPDAT) of the US Department of Justice would like to ensure that its external law enforcement partners all around the world have the benefit of some of the expertise and experience that they have in America. “We had many cases over the years because unfortunately we had several terrorism acts committed against our country. We had several investigations into financial crimes, and we are sharing them with our counterparts in Kuwait. We are focusing on fraud and money laundering, and specifically counterterrorism funding,” she said.
“We want to work closely with the ministry of commerce and industry in Kuwait to say we know that your investigators are on the frontline, regulating certain aspects of money laundering. We want to tell them that they can enhance their investigating capability to root out these kinds of crimes,” Rose said. She said money laundering and terrorism are directly interconnected. “The terrorist attack on a hotel in India had money trails of about $1,500. They need money to carry out devastating events, so it is very important to be diligent,” she added.