On 4-6 June 2024, the OSCE Transnational Threats Department, jointly with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), organized a training course in Budva, Montenegro, aimed at equipping national officials with critical skills to counter the financing of terrorism.
The training course was led by a team of international experts and five national trainers, who were previously trained through an OSCE-UNODC train-the-trainers programme. Participants included 16 experts from the Montenegro Customs Administration, National Security Agency, Tax Administration, and the Police Directorate’s Sector for the Fight against Crime and the Financial Intelligence Unit.
During the course, the participants engaged in studies based on country- and region-specific scenarios, focusing on international, regional and national threats, financial requirements of terrorist organizations, sources of financial information, and money flows. Participants also considered and assessed the risks associated with financial instruments such as informal value transfer system providers (e.g. money transfer system Hawala) and virtual assets. A substantial part of the course was dedicated to practical work, such as exercises and case studies tailored to Montenegro’s context, highlighting the critical role of inter-agency co-operation in countering the financing of terrorism.
The course marks the first module of a comprehensive training programme, which aims to further bolster Montenegro’s framework for countering the financing of terrorism, building the country’s capacity to prevent the raising, moving, storing and using of funds for terrorist purposes, in full compliance with international commitments and standards.
The training course was organized with the financial support of the United States.