As part of the project "Preventing money laundering and terrorist financing in Serbia", the first module of the training on processing and adjudicating money laundering as a standalone criminal offence was organised for prosecutors, judges and law enforcement. The training was developed based on the previous assessment of the legislative and institutional framework for processing money laundering cases, as well as detailed review of selected real-life cases. As a result of the assessment, beside recommendations for further improvement of the Serbian legal and institutional framework, a detailed curriculum and training manual has been developed. The first module of the manual offers solutions for the identified issues in financial investigations, such as the lack of a pro-active approach and regular conduct of financial enquiries, insufficient use of financial intelligence and underestimation of circumstantial evidence.

The first module of the training was organised in Vrsac, Serbia, and gathered representatives of Supreme Court, Appellate Courts from Belgrade, Novi Sad, Nis and Kragujevac, Supreme Public Prosecutor Office, Prosecution for Organised Crime, Higher Prosecution from Novi Sad, Belgrade, Nis and Kraljevo, as well as representatives from Ministry of Interior, Department for Suppression of Organised Financial Crime. During the first day of the training the results of the assessment were presented together with the analysis of the Mandatory Instruction of the Supreme Public Prosecutor on processing of ML cases. The second part of the training was dedicated to presentations on the use of financial intelligence and circumstantial evidence in ML cases as well as the practical exercises based on the real-life cases. 

The participants also had a chance to discuss the findings of the previously conducted assessment as well as different views on the standard of proof in the ML cases. The training provided opportunity for different actors in the system to gather and directly exchange experiences and resolve open questions in their work. 
 
The activity has taken place within the Project “Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in Serbia”, funded by the Swedish International Development Agency, and implemented by the Council of Europe.