Effective fight against financial crime with the support of the EU Recovery Fund

Deputy Head of Financial Intelligence Unit of Latvia for Strategic Development, Marta Jaksona, highlights the reasons and significance of establishing the center: “Money laundering methods are becoming increasingly complex and global, crossing national borders. To remain effective in this fight, we need modern tools that help us adapt to the changing environment. Only through close cooperation with all law enforcement institutions can we achieve results – jointly solving complex cases and learning from one another. At the same time, technologies have enormous potential that must be integrated into daily work. This is not a matter of choice – it is a necessity if we want to stay one step ahead of the criminal world and protect Latvia’s financial system.”

The project implemented several strategic tasks, including the introduction of modern IT systems and secure infrastructure, the establishment of collaborative spaces, and the development of innovative analytical solutions. The project’s funding reached nearly EUR 1.8 million, of which the majority, almost EUR 1.5 million, was financed by EU. This significant support made it possible to establish and equip an innovative anti-money laundering solutions, strengthening the FIU’s capacity to detect and prevent money laundering.

Within the framework of the project, several key activities are already in operation:

• a research and competence development hall, as well as strategic and operational communication rooms, functioning as a platform for knowledge exchange and cooperation;
• a secure, technologically advanced platform for knowledge sharing, transfer, and communication between the institutions involved is being used;
• data analysis solutions and management algorithms are in place, enabling more effective processing and analysis of large volumes of data;
• a technological-analytical platform for hypothesis analysis is operating, providing investigators with effective tools and opportunities.

This EU Recovery Fund project is a vivid example of how smart investments can create long term benefits for the safer society. These innovations significantly improve the speed and quality of money laundering detection, while also enabling knowledge sharing through structured, reusable tools. As a result, the cooperation platform stands not just as a technical achievement, but as a strategic enabler of faster, smarter, and more collaborative financial crime prevention in Latvia and beyond.