The Latin America Academy for Tax and Financial Crime Investigation will provide intensive courses for investigators and aims to build on the success of a pilot project in Africa.
The initiative was launched after a memorandum of understanding was signed by Argentina’s Commissioner of Public Revenues, Leandro Cuccioli, and Pascal Saint-Amans, Director of the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration.
The academy’s courses will target specific types of tax and financial crimes including those associated with cryptocurrencies, money laundering and VAT fraud.
Argentina’s minister of Treasury, Angel Gurría, said: “The establishment of the OECD Latin America Academy here in Buenos Aires to train investigators in using the latest techniques to deter, detect and prosecute financial crime such as tax fraud, money-laundering or corruption, will strengthen Latin America’s capacity to tackle these crimes.”
According to the OECD, illicit financial flows, including tax evasion and other financial crimes, are costly to government budgets and threaten the strategic, political and economic interest of all countries, especially developing nations.
The organisation said that the programmes offered under the new academy will contribute to the wider work of the OECD ‘Oslo Dialogue’, which promotes a whole-of-government approach to fighting financial crime.
