On 28 September, the presidents and representatives of the Central American and Caribbean Judicial Council of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic met in person and online in the framework of the project “Struggle against Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing: An urgent need in the Central American and Caribbean region”. The activity was supported by the EL PAcCTO programme and the Specialised Working Group to Combat Crime.

The objective of the meeting was to establish coordination ties between the different countries of the Central American region to tackle the offence of money laundering and build a regional agenda on this issue. The high-level meeting was attended by the two experts hired by EL PAcCTO, Mr Eloy Velasco Núñez, a Spanish judge, and Ms Ana Fabiola Castro Rivera, a Colombian jurist, who presented the results of the “Regional Diagnosis on Money Laundering in Central America: The work of the Central American and Caribbean Judicial Council (CJCC)”, previously drawn up by them.

The proposals and strategic lines of work will be presented to the Judicial Authorities

During the meeting ,the conclusions of the diagnosis were analysed, identifying strategic lines of work and prioritising actions to be conducted, all under the pro tempore presidency of the CJCC of El Salvador. As its main result, some proposals were debated on improvements in training and coordination that will be submitted to the presidents of the Judicial Authorities of each country, as well as the drafting of a base document on strategic approaches, with a participatory work methodology that guides results, and a clear work path to be followed by the different judicial authorites in the region. A possible continuation of EL PAcCTO support to follow up on these proposals will also be studied.