The Public Prosecutor’s Office this year suspended bank transactions amounting to 200 million euros in the framework of criminal investigations into money laundering, according to data provided at a conference on corruption this Friday.

The director of the Central Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DCIAP), Amadeu Guerra, on a balance sheet of the ETHOS project, revealed that “the value of suspensions of banking operations under investigation was already around 200 million euros this year,” much higher than the 16 million collected last year.

Considering that the ETHOS project should be extended to the investigation of money laundering and terrorist financing crimes, the magistrate also revealed that the number of communications on money laundering that this year reached the Public Prosecutor’s Office amounts to 4,400.

The director of DCIAP also drew attention to the existence of a “new criminal reality” related to “money laundering using virtual currencies”, stressing that, in this area too, “training must be deepened.”

The ETHOS-corruption and economic-financial crime project comprises 60 magistrates working in the specialized sections – DCIAP, district EIDPs and the EISD of the counties – investigating economic and financial crime and corruption, as well as magistrates from the Courts of Accounts, Administrative Jurisdiction and Constitutional Court. It is an intensive and highly specialized training program for prosecutors in the areas of prevention and investigation of corruption and economic and financial crime.

In addition to this training were also held in public procurement banking and financial law, tax law and accounting, town planning and recovery of the proceeds of crime.

After the assessment by Amadeu Guerra, the Attorney General of the Republic, who at the end of her address received a standing ovation from the conference, praised the work done by the magistrates of the Public Prosecution during his term, without which it would not be possible to reach the goals.