PRESS RELEASE

August 24, 2009

U.S. Helps Vietnam Build Capacity to Combat Bulk Cash Smuggling and Trade-Based Money Laundering

The U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of State-funded ASEAN-U.S. Technical Assistance and Training Facility will hold a training workshop for Vietnamese border and banking officials to combat trade-based money laundering.

Thirty Vietnam Customs officers and representatives from the Anti-Money Laundering Information Center at the State Bank of Vietnam will be trained in detecting bulk cash smuggling and trade-based money laundering in a special U.S.-organized workshop this week. 

U.S. Consul General Ken Fairfax is opening the seminar, which is being led by experts from the U.S. Treasury Department.  “Vietnam has been aggressively addressing financial crimes in recent years,” Fairfax said.  “We see this workshop as a contribution from the United States to help further this agenda.”

Trade-based money laundering represents “an important channel of criminal activity and…an increasingly important money laundering and terrorist financing vulnerability,” according to a 2006 study by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental body that was created 20 years ago to develop and promote national and international policies to combat money laundering.  The FATF report notes that as measures to counter other forms of money laundering become more effective, the “use of trade-based money laundering can be expected to become increasingly attractive.”
 
This workshop is the second in a series of efforts within ASEAN to increase awareness and vigilance in identifying and countering trade-based money laundering.  The first was held two months ago in Laos.

Developing economies are especially vulnerable to trade-based money laundering during periods when their own international trade is growing.

This workshop, organized by the ASEAN-US Technical Assistance and Training Facility in cooperation with the General Department of Vietnam Customs, is a joint activity of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Treasury Department, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

When:  Aug. 25 – 28, 2009
Where: Sheraton Hotel, Ho Chi Minh City

The opening ceremony will start at 9:00 a.m. on Aug. 25, and the closing ceremony will be at 3:30 p.m. on Aug. 28, 2009.

Interested reporters are invited to join the event.