Central America
Forum on money laundering and financial crimes to be held in Costa Rica
February 7th |
Costa Rica will host the World Compliance Forum in early March, which will address the most innovative tools against financial crime, organizers announced today.
The event, organized by the Foundation for the Study of Money Laundering (Felade), in alliance with the University for Peace, will be held on March 2 and 3, in person at the Costa Rica Marriott Hotel, but will also have a virtual space.
Felade and the University for Peace announced that 350 compliance officers and specialists from Latin America have already confirmed their attendance, while they added that the broad agenda of conferences and panels will be in charge of more than 20 outstanding specialists from Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Panama, Chile and Costa Rica.
According to the organizers, the Forum, whose theme will be The Age of Digital Compliance, is a unique window on the latest legislative developments and the most innovative tools to protect entities from money laundering, fraud and financial crime.
They also said that participants will address topics such as metaverse, cryptoassets, artificial intelligence for fraud prediction and detection and digital threats and vulnerabilities.
The president of Felade, José Quesada, said that the entry into the digital world has placed us in front of new threats and therefore, he said, it is very important that we begin to visualize the real risks that exist at the level of new digital platforms.
Beyond the clear knowledge we have of crimes on the physical level, we need to better understand where crimes are migrating to in the virtual part and that is why this Forum is focused on current issues such as cryptocurrencies and will analyze successful cases in the financial industry and the prevention of money laundering, Quesada said.
For his part, the rector of the University for Peace, Francisco Rojas, said that organized crime and its activities, such as money laundering, are the greatest threats to democracy in Latin America.
For this reason, the event represents an opportunity to debate these issues with experts and offer new perspectives on the fight against organized crime for professionals and decision makers in the region. The organizers said that among the most relevant conferences of the Forum are The use of artificial intelligence for fraud prediction and detection, Web3 and the metaverse and Cryptocurrencies and their tax treatment.
In addition, they added, there will be panels on illicit financial flows, tax transparency, the outlook for the legality of cryptoassets, and regulatory prospects for 2023.
Central America
El Salvador to host World Cup qualifiers vs. Guatemala and Panama at Estadio Cuscatlán
El Salvador’s national football team will host its final round World Cup qualifying matches against Guatemala and Panama at Estadio Cuscatlán, the honorary president of the National Sports Institute (INDES), Yamil Bukele, announced Thursday via a statement on his X account.
The official explained that this decision comes after the American rock band Guns N’ Roses, originally scheduled to perform at Estadio Cuscatlán on Saturday, October 4, will now hold their concert at Estadio Jorge “El Mágico” González. This change allows both of La Selecta’s qualifying matches to be played at the “Coloso de Monserrat.”
“After a series of efforts and in response to popular demand, we are pleased to announce that our senior national team’s CONCACAF World Cup qualifying matches next October (Oct. 10 vs. Panama and Oct. 14 vs. Guatemala) will take place at Estadio Cuscatlán,” the statement reads.
Bukele also thanked the event promoters and the band for agreeing to the stadium change. “We sincerely thank Guns N’ Roses and StarTicket for agreeing to move the concert originally scheduled for October 4 at Estadio Cuscatlán,” the statement adds.
Additionally, Bukele expressed gratitude to the FESFUT Regularization Commission for their efforts with CONCACAF to make this possible, and he urged fans to stay tuned to official channels to purchase tickets and support La Selecta in their World Cup qualifying campaign.
Central America
Honduran president Xiomara Castro suspends activities due to influenza
Honduran President Xiomara Castro announced on Thursday that she has “temporarily” suspended her public activities due to a severe influenza virus.
“A strong influenza virus requires me to rest, trusting that I will be fully recovered for the grand celebration of our National Independence Day” next Monday, Castro stated on the social media platform X.
The president had planned to participate in several inaugurations across the northern, central, and eastern regions of the country throughout the week. She added that “these events will be rescheduled for new dates.”
Central America
Nicaragua’s government expels bishops, priests, and nuns in religious persecution
At least 261 religious figures, including the president of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference, Carlos Enrique Herrera, have been expelled as part of the persecution by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo’s regime against the Catholic Church, reported the NGO Colectivo Nicaragua Nunca Más in its report Faith Under Fire.
The report details that among those expelled are bishops Silvio Báez, Rolando Álvarez, Isidoro Mora, as well as the Apostolic Nuncio in Managua, Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, along with approximately 140 priests, over 90 nuns, ten seminarians, and three deacons from different dioceses in the country.
“Since the expulsion of Nuncio Sommertag in March 2022, relations between Nicaragua and the Vatican have significantly deteriorated,” the NGO noted.
The report also documents the closure of 5,609 non-profit organizations, of which 1,294 were religious, including churches, universities, schools, clinics, and humanitarian organizations. Most of these had their assets confiscated by the Sandinista government. Additionally, the telecommunications regulator TELCOR shut down 54 media outlets, including 22 religious radio stations and TV channels.
Repression has extended to other religious denominations, with forced disappearances and criminalization of evangelical pastors, control over temples, media censorship, fiscal pressure, property confiscation, and the cancellation of legal status for the Moravian Church. Pastor Rudy Palacios remains in detention as part of this pattern of persecution.
The NGO emphasized that churches, especially the Catholic Church, played a key role in the 2018 national dialogue, denouncing abuses and providing refuge to injured protesters, which fueled the government’s hostility.
In 2023, Pope Francis described Ortega’s regime as a “blatant dictatorship”, to which the Nicaraguan president responded by dissolving the Society of Jesus and labeling the Church as a “mafia” and “anti-democratic.”
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