The Third International Forum on Tax and Crime was held in Istanbul on 7 and 8 November 2013. The Forum brought together representatives of tax and customs administration, police, financial regulators and anti-money laundering and anti-corruption authorities from almost seventy countries in addition to representatives of international organizations.  They shared their experiences in respect of strategies to fight financial crime in all its forms.

The Forum focused on themes such as inter-agency cooperation and issues in combating corruption. They also discussed the removal of the barriers to developing more effective international cooperation to fight financial crime. Among the tools considered for fighting financial crime are the use of suspicious transaction reports and strategies for detecting electronic sales suppression. Discussions also centred around illicit tobacco smuggling and its effect on other crimes including tax offences.

The meeting discussed the results of the new OECD Forum of Heads of Tax Crime Investigation. Also, a new OECD Capacity Building Program for Tax Crime Investigation was started in 2012 and progress made by this program was discussed at the meeting.  Tax crime in the fisheries sector was discussed and the new OECD report on the subject was presented to the Forum.  There was also discussion of the OECD Bribery and Corruption Awareness Handbook for Tax Examiners and Auditors.