Carlos Arregui, who until yesterday was as minister of the Secretariat for the Prevention of Money Laundering (Seprelad), said during an interview with channel 5Días that the main call for attention in the Gafilat report was indeed about the investigative processes carried out by of the Prosecutor’s Office and the number of judgments of the Supreme Court of Justice.
“We need to continue with actions to improve the low effectiveness rating for cases that ended in convictions. There are specific works that are being started to better train judges in the specialized area on money laundering, as well as courts and tribunals in coordination with the Public Ministry to improve the weak areas that have been detected”, he commented.
He also recalled that USAID, which is the international cooperation of the United States, has offered Paraguay technical and financial support to make the necessary adjustments to improve the efficiency of the investigation and justice system. At this point, one of the evaluators’ observations is that there are many money laundering cases with maximum sentences of up to five years in prison that, in reality, later end with a series of mitigating circumstances in three years of sentence and that are little dissuasive for people linked to these scourges. “These working groups that we have been developing include judges and chamberlains to analyze this specific recommendation to propose a bill to increase penalties,” he stressed.
Regarding the observations that appear in the document about the leaks of intelligence reports that reach the media or social networks, Arregui recalled that this is a reality that affects all countries, including the United States. . In the case of Paraguay, most of the reports are sent to the Public Ministry.
“Today the reports are no longer in physical format but electronic and codified, which even allows us to see the number of downloads that are made once it reaches the user. This is a process that began with these facts that were made public through leaks and we hope that within a year, when we present the report on this point, we will have a substantial improvement”, highlighted the former minister.
