The Deputy Chairman of the RA Investigative Committee Arsen Ayvazyan received today the delegation headed by Alexis Haftvan, Director of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) of the US Embassy to Armenia.

Arsen Ayvazyan noted that the high-level cooperation between the RA Investigative Committee and the U.S. Embassy to Armenia continues effectively within the framework of which significant work has been carried out in different directions aimed at capacity building and improvement of professional resources of the RA Investigative Committee.

Another important step in this direction is the launch of a training program aimed at capacity building in the criminal legal fight against money laundering within the cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the US Department of Justice. The RA Investigative Committee had presented the need for US professional support in this field during the previous meetings with the representatives of the US Embassy. The Deputy Chairman of the RA Investigative Committee underlined that as a method of money laundering, the mechanisms of converting funds acquired in a criminal way into crypto currencies, or acquiring real estate in other countries, are used more recently, the fight against which implies broad international cooperation and continuous capacity building.

This cooperation also comes from the cooperation memorandum signed this year between the RA Investigative Committee and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Arsen Ayvazyan expressed his belief that the training courses conducted by the experts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation based on the rich American experience in the fight against financial crimes will contribute to increasing the efficiency and quality of preliminary investigation within the criminal proceedings on money laundering.

Mrs. Haftvan emphasized that the US is ready to help all the initiatives of fight against money laundering and other financial crimes which the RA law enforcement bodies see the need for. She added that they can already discuss the needs and directions of further new programs and initiatives in this field.

During the meeting issues related to the training course starting in Yerevan, cooperation between the RA Investigative Committee and the US Embassy were discussed. The parties agreed to activate the dialogue in the near future, to discuss the details of the new programs to be planned, taking the needs of the RA Investigative Committee into account.