Vice President Jusuf Kalla has said police organizations in ASEAN member countries need a system to prevent money laundering.
“It’s all about our effort to reduce crimes, such as corruption and money laundering. With the system, countries can inform each other to prevent money laundering from happening [in ASEAN],” he said as quoted by Antara in his remarks at the opening ceremony of the 35th ASEANAPOL Conference in Jakarta on Tuesday.
Kalla called on several ASEAN member countries to not protect fund transfers deemed illegal.
“We need a good system and cooperation on how we can best prevent cross-border crime and this needs to be supported by a proper unity of laws that bind us all together,” said Kalla.
The conference is slated to take place Aug. 4-7.
Kalla said it was hoped that the cooperation achieved through the ASEAN police conference could guarantee the security and economics progress of the region.
The Vice President said ASEAN was widely perceived as a successful area with huge economic potential; thus it needed security protection from police officers in each country.
“ASEAN is an advanced trade area and part of the world’s developed economies. With around 600 million people, ASEAN definitely needs progress and stability,” said Kalla.
He hoped senior police officials in each ASEAN member country could exchange information and increase their mutual understanding in any integrated police activity. The ASEANAPOL Conference could hopefully create the establishment of an international law instrument in ASEAN to tackle not only money laundering but also other transnational crimes, such as drug smuggling, human trafficking and terrorism.
“We don’t want this region to suffer devastating incidents as has happened in other countries, such as Middle Eastern countries which were damaged by conflicts. Cooperation is needed to tackle such things,” said Kalla.
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