Roughly 30 Anti-Corruption Unit officials yesterday attended the first day of a two-week workshop providing training on techniques for preventing and investigating money-laundering crimes.

Nuon Bophal, ACU deputy president, said during yesterday’s opening session that corruption and money laundering were “difficult issues” and that law enforcement officials needed extensive knowledge in order to investigate them.

“This training is an opportunity for officials at the ACU to get new experiences in order to help the work of the ACU and to help the search for corrupt officials at government institutions,” he said.

In a phone conversation with the Post yesterday, Nuon Bophal clarified that the workshop was not initiated by a specific complaint, but rather, the “need” for “knowledge in this field”.

“The [the anti-corruption law]…requires officials to have a right role and obligation to investigate money-laundering crimes that result from corruption,” he said.

Phan Ho, secretary-general of the Financial Intelligence Unit at the National Bank of Cambodia, said yesterday that he supported initiatives to train officers in financial investigation, but that “the scale of money laundering” in Cambodia was difficult to ascertain because no studies had been done.

Oliver Lermet, country manager for the UNODC, which helped organise the training workshop with the ACU, could not be reached for comment.