By Laura Lynott, Senior Correspondent
Antoine Magnant, director of TRACFIN, has told the European Anti-Financial Crime Summit (EAFCS), that PPPs working together against cyber crime is key to protecting democracy.
Mr Magnant gave a keynote address to the RDS audience, stating that with the backdrop of the Olympics, set to be staged in Paris this year, it was increasingly apparent how PPPs needed to share data to work against crime and terrorism.
“Paris is about to host the Olympics and we have to try to make the world welcome,” Mr Magnant said.
“But there’s a lot of work to be done. The terrorist risk is very high. We are working very hard on these (terrorist) groups. We are also trying to check the ticketing system to see who buys tickets… to avoid attacks.
“We are working with the intelligence service and police in Paris but a lot of work is still to be done…PPPS in this field are especially useful.”
Mr Magnant said France is “tackling fraud without borders,” with the cooperation between FIUs and while this was “key to the answer, it’s not the only answer,” he said.
Among the threats France is facing is terrorism, money laundering, tax fraud, drug tracking, human trafficking, crypto, he explained.
“There is such a lot to be done to protect democracy,” he said. Collaboration between PPPs across the globe was necessary, he said, to maintain “a collective confidence in the states and the rule of law within the society…”
“I’d like to speak to protect democracy,” he added. “The answer to this huge crisis might be we are not careful enough and it could lead to a new lapse as there’s already been a civil lapse in societies. And this should get the highest attention from us.”
Mr Magnant said the French Government is furious that fraudsters have taken advantage of State support schemes for the public during the pandemic and post pandemic.
Bringing those criminals to justice was now a priority. “We spent dozens of billions of euro just in the last four years,” he said. “Decisions were taken very quickly in a crisis context.”
“This is an important matter, we are trying to ID them with different tools that we have,” he said.
The speech made it increasingly apparent how important the issue of PPPs working together against crime has now become.
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