Senior Financial Crime Specialist - TRAFFIC

TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, is the leading non-governmental organization working globally on trade in wild animals and plants in the context of both biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.

TRAFFIC has a growing portfolio of work within the financial sector and has invested resources to establish more formal networks of institutions working to raise the profile and attention on illegal wildlife trade within their establishments.

Notably, TRAFFIC is a founding member of the United for Wildlife Financial Taskforce which is a bank-led initiative designed to improve understanding of the issue within financial institutions and assist them in targeting their own resources to detect and report suspicious activity of individuals and companies using their companies.

Furthermore, TRAFFIC has been working with strategic partners such as UNODC to assist law enforcement, mainly Financial Intelligence and Asset Recovery Units with improved awareness of illegal wildlife and conduct training to “follow the money” associated with wildlife crime through ARIN (Asset Recovery Interagency Networks) and others.

TRAFFIC is seeking expertise to assist in the development and delivery of a range of activities in West Africa ECOWAS countries, under USAID funding, together with partners, within the financial sector.

JOB DESCRIPTION

This is a project management role with responsibility for the planning, delivery, and reporting function of various initiatives under the financial crime component of the WABiLED project. The overall role of this position is to sensitize and capacity build with key stakeholders on the use of financial investigations and application of financial criminal law, in the interdiction and conviction of wildlife crime offenders.

LOCATION: The Financial Crime Specialist will also provide line management and coordination role to the two other TRAFFIC staff based in Accra.

Specific responsibilities will include:

• Encourage and support financial investigations for law enforcement agencies where it relates to Wildlife and Forestry Crime cases.
• Conduct sensitization and awareness program to ensure that partners in project countries are aware of the need for financial investigations in Wildlife and Forestry cases
• Conduct needs assessment within target law enforcement agencies
• Provide training and advice to investigators on appropriate financial strategies to follow in ongoing cases.

• Assist in connecting law enforcement agencies across borders to facilitate completion of key cases being worked on
• Build networks and engage with the local Finance, Transport and any other sector that would be a conduit to IWT / Money Laundering
• Provide IWT/AML detection training/awareness to these sectors
• Encourage Finance and Transport sector firms who are not members of UfW to join the membership
• Targeting FIUs and the private sector, conduct situation analysis to better understand the skills and resources currently dedicated to financial crime investigations. Based on findings, develop recommendations for resource deployment and provide and deliver financial training packages (e.g. covering forensic accounting techniques) in collaboration with relevant regional networks, such as GIABA (Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa) or others.
• Identify sources of data on financial crime in IWT, provide support to project partners in sourcing this data, and assist in advising on case reviews as they become known.
• Lead and develop a financial typologies (case study) report detailing IWT case studies where financial data is known. Additional typology reports may be developed depending on the number of case studies found.
• Conduct a series of workshops for validation of the report
• Hold an event to launch the report officially
• Use the data for educational and training events
• Building on relationships with United for Wildlife Financial Taskforce, explore the feasibility of developing Public-Private Partnership Forums in key countries to support sharing of data and progression of knowledge around organized crime syndicates involved in IWT.
• If/where possible, advocate for asset recovery in known IWT cases with appropriate enforcement units in select countries.
• Act as TRAFFIC project team lead, providing line management support to TRAFFIC staff based in Accra (TWIX Manager and Transport Sector Specialist) with overall project reporting responsibility to TRAFFIC WABiLED Project Supervisor (based at TRAFFIC Head Office).

REQUIREMENTS

• An advanced university-level degree is preferred (e.g. Masters) in finance, law, economics, policing, political science, international relations, public administration or other related fields, or a relevant advanced level professional qualification;
• A first-level university degree OR equivalent academic education, professional training with certification from a recognized international/national police, customs, or other staff training institution, with specialization in criminal justice, crime prevention, criminal investigation, law enforcement, border management, border working techniques, and/or other related areas, in combination with additional years of qualifying experience, may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree;

• Significant experience in addressing financial crime (e.g. money laundering);
• Some experience of working in Africa is preferred, ideally West or Central Africa;
• Knowledge of environmental crime issues would be an advantage;
• Previous experience in delivering training/teaching in the field of international or transnational crime /anti-corruption/ AML and cooperation; and providing mentorship support to governments
• A minimum of five years relevant experience working in a project management capacity, covering planning, budgeting, and financial reporting
• Demonstrated experience of preparing donor/project reports
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with experience in staff management;
• Fluency in written and spoken English and French;
• Must be able to travel extensively throughout the West Africa region, which may require frequent periods of up to ten days away from home.