Cyprus Unit for Combating Money Laundering (MOKAS) enhances its capabilities to prevent and combat transnational organized crime, in particular money laundering and terrorist financing, through a relevant project contract signed on Friday.
An official press release issued here Sunday said that the Planning Bureau and MOKAS signed on the 25th of January a contract for the project “Strengthening MOKAS Capacities and Improve Efficiency to Detect Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism”, which will be implemented under the Norway Grants 2009-2014.
The press release notes that “the main objective of the Project is to automate the analysis and investigation procedure of MOKAS by implementing an IT system for supporting the core activities of the Unit so as to enhance the capabilities of the Unit with the best use of available information and automatic recognition of relationships between data, information and suspects. Through enhanced cooperation between law enforcement agencies and information providers it is expected to develop policies and tools necessary for the prevention and combating of transnational organized crime, in particular money laundering and terrorist financing, which they will meet international standards for combating money laundering”.
It adds that during the implementation of the Project, MOKAS’ counterpart in Norway, which is the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Norway, will be involved in order to exchange knowledge and best practices in the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing area.
For this purpose, on site visits will take place by members of the Project team from FIU Cyprus to the FIU of Norway. During the finalization of the Project a MoU will be signed between the Heads of FIU of Cyprus and FIU of Norway, as a corroboration of their bilateral relations and cooperation, said the press release.
Funding for the implementation of the project will be provided to Cyprus on the basis of the relevant provisions of the approved Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Cyprus and Norway in December 2011, as well as the Programme Agreement signed on the 5th of December 2012.
The total budget of the Project is €1.100.882. The Norway Grants will provide 85% of the total project budget, which amounts to €935.750, whereas MOKAS will provide 15% of the total project budget, which amounts to €165.132.
