Press Room

Terrorism financing, new European laws are top concerns of anti-money laundering specialists

World-renowned experts to appear at conference in Vienna, Austria

Money Laundering Alert and Moneylaundering.com, which annually sponsor the world’s largest and most renowned money laundering conference in South Florida, are bringing their famous conference format and expertise to Vienna for the First Annual European Money Laundering Conference, from 29 September to 1 October 2004 at the Intercontinental Wien in Vienna.

“The many anti-money laundering professionals we consult tell us it is essential that we bring a sharper focus to the money laundering and terrorist financing problems specific to the European Union and the Middle East. That’s why we’re inaugurating this European conference,” said Charles Intriago, a former U.S. federal prosecutor who founded the influential and respected Money Laundering Alert in 1989.

The European conference in the historic Austrian capital will host more than a dozen panels at which some of the leading European, Asian and Middle Eastern experts will provide guidance on the best practices that attendees can follow in complying with the changing laws and regulations in their anti-money laundering efforts. The panels will focus on a broad range of money laundering issues, the most prominent being the urgent world crisis of detecting and blocking the financing of terrorism.

“The expansion of the European Union has given Europe an unprecedented new array of challenges in keeping criminal and terrorist money at bay,” said Saskia Rietbroek-Garces, executive director of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS), and one of the conference moderators.

Some panels will examine vexing public policy controversies in the money laundering field while others will focus on practical compliance and managerial tips to help the conferees keep their companies free of potentially ruinous entanglements. Just a few topics that will be discussed at the conference include:

• The ever-expanding landscape of European money laundering regulations;
• Information sharing in cross-border financial investigations of money laundering and terrorist financing;
• Getting a good return on an investment in anti-money laundering technology;
• Middle East efforts to fight money laundering and terrorist financing.

Experts speaking at the conference hail from 10 countries and have decades of experience in financial institutions and international governmental organizations, such as Scotland Yard, the Council of Europe and the United Nations. The conference is designed to maximize audience participation, and allows attendees to question and network with speakers who are top officials from business and government, such as.

• Martin Owen, head of the financial crime policy unit, UK Financial Services Authority;
• Barry Sabin, chief of the counterterrorism section for the criminal division of the U.S. Justice Department;
• John Ringguth, secretary of MONEYVAL, a Council of Europe committee that evaluates AML and counter-terrorist financing measures in 27 member countries;
• Talal Alsayegh, head of AML section, Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK);
• Thomas Spies, anti-money laundering officer, Deutsche Bank Group.

A full listing of conference panels and speakers is online.

Money Laundering Alert and Moneylaundering.com are Miami-based affiliates that are the foremost source of anti-money laundering news, intelligence, analysis and guidance in the world. For the past decade Money Laundering Alert and Moneylaundering.com have held international conferences of ever greater size and sophistication in the United States and Latin America. More than 20,000 people have attended Money Laundering Alert conferences and seminars since 1990. Ninety percent of attendees have rated Money Laundering Alert conferences as “excellent.”

Registration information and a full conference program are available online.

(Accredited members of the press may obtain press credentials to cover the conference by contacting craphael@moneylaundering.com or by phone at 305-530-0500.)