There has been a rapid rise in the number of criminal cases brought to court this year in Latvia. The Prosecution office has taken a total of 103 criminal cases relating to money laundering ad involving 195 persons to court between 2017 and 2019 – a very high increase compared to previous years. The increase can better be attributed to the involvement of the Prosecution office in many training on identifying, combating, and confiscating laundered money. For instance, only 30 members participated in the training in 2017, the number rose to 193 and 330 participants in 2018 and 2109 respectively.
A previous report showed that Latvia was required to submit a progress report in 2019 to the Financial Action Task Force, of its effort to eliminate money laundering and other financial crimes. The report focused on the recommendations of the MoneyVal experts to improve on the existing system of money laundering measures and the combating of terrorism and proliferation financing (AML/CTF/CPF). The crack-down on Latvian Banks’ reputation for money laundering and sanctions seemed to have paid dividend on January 22 as significant success was seen from the experts on the evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism.
