Fight against financial crime should not be just for police, but whole nation – Mamo

“The fight against financial crime is not only one being faced by the police, but by the whole nation,” Assistant Police Commissioner Alexandra Mamo, head of the Financial Crime Investigation Department, told Malta Business Weekly.

She was asked how the business community can help the police when it comes to investigating financial crime.

“The business community can help the police in investigating financial crime,” Mamo said. If anyone has any suspicion of an activity that might be coming from the proceeds of crime, they should report it. She also said that credit and financial institutions have an obligation to report such things to the police and to the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit.

Speaking about the police force and its handling of financial crime, the Assistant Police Commissioner said that nowadays they have investigating officers who specialise in tackling corruption cases; in tackling the financing of terrorism cases; in non-cash payment fraud; in sports corruption and other areas like money laundering.

Economic crime is one form of crime that is on the rise. She was asked what types of such crime she believes the police would need to look out for in the future. “Cybercrime, crimes involving cryptocurrencies. We need to focus on these as they are not just tomorrow’s crimes, but even todays.” She also mentioned crimes involving online gaming.

Mamo stressed on the importance of continuously training police officers to help deal with such crimes. “One of our policies is for every person in my department to receive continuous training, due to the fact that crime evolves. Digital crime evolves continuously.”

She said that one-time training is never enough. “Like university, you cannot undertake one university course and stop there. You need to continuously research.”