The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) hosted the 8th Annual Meeting of the Economic Crime Agencies Network (ECAN) on the 16 and 17 March 2022 with the theme of “Economic Crime:  Jeopardizing National Security”. Due to the ongoing pandemic and border closures, the meeting was held via an online platform. 

The two-day meeting was chaired by Datuk Seri Norazlan bin Mohd Razali, Deputy Chief Commissioner (Prevention) of MACC and attracted 46 officers from 10 member law enforcement agencies and 3 agencies that primarily investigate economic crime as observers. The keynote address was delivered by the Deputy Chief Commissioner (Operations) of MACC Dato' Sri Ahmad Khusairi bin Yahaya, on behalf of the Chief Commissioner of MACC, Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Azam Baki. In the keynote address, he emphasised that ECAN members must continuously combat economic crime more so in times of pandemic because corruption also occurs in pandemic-related expenditures. Secondly he gave examples on how MACC tackled corruption in a holistic way in some major corruption investigations.

The meeting enabled member to show case a case study that was related to the theme, best practices or latest cases of interest. It was hoped that each agency could take the opportunity to learn from other agencies. The 2021 Annual Report of ECAN was also tabled for members to assess the effectiveness of ECAN. Among the member agencies participated are from the Australian Federal Police; City of London Police, United Kingdom; Corruption Eradication Commission, Indonesia; Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, Singapore; Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nigeria; European Anti-Fraud Office, European Commission; Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States of America; Independent Commission Against Corruption, Hong Kong; and Serious Fraud Office, New Zealand. This meeting was also participated by three observers from the Anti-Corruption Bureau of Brunei Darussalam, Central Bank of Malaysia and the National Anti-Financial Crime Centre of Malaysia.

(Source: MACC, Malaysia)