Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea), 23 March 2023 - “Follow the Money” was the message of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Papua New Guinea during a recent training to anti-corruption investigators to combat corrupt conduct and carry out financial investigations more effectively.

Participants included highly experienced investigators, prosecutors, lawyers, and accountants from the Auditor General’s Office, the Independent Commission Against Corruption, the National Fraud & Anti-Corruption Directorate, the Office of the Public Prosecutor, and the Ombudsman Commission.

The training was facilitated by UNODC under the EU-funded PNG Anti-Corruption Project implemented, jointly with the UN Development Programme. The training targeted specific operational activities to enhance the use of financial intelligence and pursue asset recovery proceedings. A core competency imparted at the training was the technical skills and methods to assess and calculate wealth, to identify possible unexplained wealth, and to pursue non-conviction-based recovery of assets under the Proceeds of Crimes Act 2015.

"Non-conviction-based criminal assets investigation can run parallel to criminal proceedings in PNG. I hope the learnings from the UNODC training will be applied in practice," said Mr. Raphael Luman, Deputy Public Prosecutor- Courts.

Participants were also trained to recognize organized crime activities and conspiracies when assessing or investigating corruption- and fraud-related offences.