The Counter Terrorism Financing Investigation Workshop was successfully organised from 1 to 3 August 2017 at the Institut Latihan Kesejahteraan Bandar, Perumahan Dan Kerajaan Tempatan (IKPKT), Bukit Tinggi, Pahang. This workshop was attended by 28 participants (grades 41 – 44) from various agencies.
The speakers who led this workshop were SEARCCT’s newly established local trainers from relevant agencies, namely the Royal Malaysia Police, Attorney General’s Chambers and Bank Negara Malaysia. These trainers were initially trained by Australia during SEARCCT’s Financial Investigation Workshop in March 2017, making this workshop, a first, by these trainers.
As an introductory SEARCCT-programme on terrorism financing, the modules were focused mainly on, Terrorism Financing – Overview, Financial Intelligence, Malaysia’s Terrorism Financing Legal Framework, Malaysia’s Approach to Counter Terrorism Financing and International Counter Terrorism Financing Tools and Roles of other Agencies.
Over the course of three (3) days, participants were exposed to the alarming threat of Daesh through the statistics of terrorist suspects in Malaysia while understanding the various legal tools in Malaysia that are in place. They were then made aware of the differences between money laundering and terrorism financing, along with the various terrorism financing typologies that were discussed through several terrorism financing case studies in Malaysia and abroad.
Through the table top exercise, participants managed to gauge the challenges in gathering evidence for cases of terrorism financing in court. Here, coordination among agencies, was seen as an imperative element in ensuring successful counter terrorism financing operations.
In essence, SEARCCT received encouraging feedback from the local trainers who had successfully completed their first exercise and displayed motivation and commitment to share their expertise with SEARCCT in capacity-building programmes on terrorism financing. Participants also suggested on including several new modules in future programmes for the enhancement of the current modules and overall running of the workshop.