As part of the academic program of the International Summer School of the University of Panama, the Institute of Criminology of the School of Law and Political Sciences and Caribbean, Bermuda and Latin America Crime Stoppers, held the seminar “Illicit Trade and Money Laundering in Panama.
More than 100 attendees came from national security institutions such as SENAN and SENAFRONT, the National Customs Authority, the Financial Analysis Unit, Colon Free Zone, the private sector, students and journalists. Speakers from Argentina, Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama and organizations such as UNDP, IDB, UAF, ICE-Homeland Security Investigation, among others, were present to provide their vision on the subject.
The seminar allowed to continue positioning in the national agenda and specifically in the academic agenda the topic of how trade is being used by transnational criminal groups and corporations to launder money whose origin is illicit, whether of drug trafficking, terrorism, corruption or of international illicit trade, mainly through products such as cigarettes, medicines, textiles, and others.
This meeting is held as a prelude to the one that Crime Stoppers is organizing together with GAFILAT in the month of April, where customs representatives, prosecutors and financial intelligence units of the 17 member countries will be present in Panama to continue discussing the issue with a Latin American approach that will allow to systematize common typologies of this crime in the region.
Crime Stoppers Panama is operational in the country since the end of 2018 through the website www.tupista.org
