Strengthening International Cooperation in Combating the Harmful Effects of Illicit Financial Flows Resulting From Criminal Activities

Urges States parties to the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988,Error: Reference source not found the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized CrimeError: Reference source not found and the United Nations Convention against CorruptionError: Reference source not found to apply fully the provisions of those Conventions, in particular measures to prevent and combat money-laundering, including by criminalizing the laundering of proceeds of transnational organized crime, including, as appropriate, drug trafficking and related offences provided for in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, and invites Member States that have not yet done so to consider becoming parties to those Conventions;

Encourages Member States to fully implement applicable standards, as appropriate, in order to adopt the comprehensive range of measures required to prevent and combat money-laundering and the financing of terrorism;

Urges Member States, in accordance with national laws, to require financial institutions and other businesses or members of any profession subject to obligations with regard to countering money-laundering to report promptly to the competent authorities any funds transaction in which they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the assets are proceeds of crime and money-laundering resulting from transnational organized crime, including, as appropriate, drug trafficking and related offences provided for in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime;

Also urges Member States to consider taking all measures necessary to ensure that they do not provide a safe haven for wanted fugitives who have accumulated or are harbouring in their possession proceeds of crime derived from transnational organized crime, including, as appropriate, drug trafficking and related offences provided for in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, or who finance organized crime or criminal organizations, in particular by extraditing or prosecuting such fugitives, and urges Member States, in accordance with national laws and international law obligations, to fully cooperate with each other in this regard;

Encourages Member States to afford other countries the greatest possible measure of legal assistance and information exchange in connection with relevant investigations, inquiries and proceedings related to tracing illicit financial flows and seeking to identify illicitly acquired assets resulting from transnational organized crime, including, as appropriate, drug trafficking and related offences provided for in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime;

Also encourages Member States to cooperate in confiscation-related investigations and proceedings, including through the recognition and enforcement of foreign temporary judicial orders and confiscation judgements, management of assets and implementation of asset-sharing measures, in accordance with their laws and applicable treaties;

Urges Member States to establish or, where applicable, strengthen national institutions specializing in financial intelligence by allowing them to receive, obtain, analyse and disseminate financial information relevant to preventing, detecting and deterring illicit financial flows resulting from transnational organized crime, including, as appropriate, drug trafficking and related offences provided for in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, and to ensure that such institutions have the ability to facilitate the exchange of such information with relevant international partners, in accordance with relevant domestic procedures;

Also urges Member States to consider related global and regional initiatives to facilitate the tracing of proceeds of crime resulting from transnational organized crime, including, as appropriate, drug trafficking and related offences provided for in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime;

Encourages Member States to consider implementing measures, in accordance with the fundamental principles of their legal systems and consistent with their national legal frameworks, for the confiscation of assets absent a criminal conviction, in cases where it can be established that the subject assets are the proceeds of crime and a criminal conviction is not possible;

Requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in close cooperation and consultation with Member States and in cooperation with relevant international organizations, to strengthen, simplify and make more efficient the collection and reporting of accurate, reliable and comparable data on transnational organized crime;

Calls upon the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to continue providing technical assistance, upon request, to Member States, in order to enhance their capacity to collect, analyse and report data on illicit financial flows resulting from transnational organized crime, including, as appropriate, drug trafficking and related offences provided for in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, as well as to prevent, detect and deter illicit financial flows and money-laundering resulting from such criminal activities;

Urges the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to continue providing technical assistance to Member States to combat money-laundering and the financing of terrorism through the Global Programme against Money-Laundering, Proceeds of Crime and the Financing of Terrorism, in accordance with related United Nations instruments and internationally accepted standards, including, where applicable, recommendations of relevant intergovernmental bodies, inter alia, the Financial Action Task Force, and relevant initiatives of regional, interregional and multilateral organizations against money-laundering;

Requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to continue, in consultation with Member States, its research on transnational organized crime, including illicit financial flows;

Calls upon the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to strengthen the Global Programme against Money-Laundering, Proceeds of Crime and the Financing of Terrorism, inter alia, in line with the recommendations made by the Independent Evaluation Unit in its review of the Global Programme;

Requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to strengthen its cooperation with other appropriate international and regional organizations engaged in combating the harmful effects of illicit financial flows resulting from transnational organized crime, including, as appropriate, drug trafficking and related offences provided for in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, for the purposes of providing technical assistance in this regard;

Invites Member States and other donors to provide extrabudgetary resources for these purposes, in accordance with the rules and procedures of the United Nations;

Requests the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to report to the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice at its twenty-second session on measures taken and progress achieved in the implementation of the present resolution.