Stefano Barone is a Project Manager at World Customs Organization (WCO) and he has oversight responsability of any activity related to plan, direct and monitor of the Project Tentacle, which is a project focused on implementing capabilities and awareness on customs authorities worldwide in the fight against Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing. He is also in charge of organizing, managing and conducting diagnostic and technical assistance missions, including regional and national workshops, and liaising effectively with beneficiary countries and key stakeholders such as Interpol, the Egmont Group and the UNODC.

Prior of WCO, he was Chief Inspector at Guardia di Finanza, the Italian Financial Police, in Turin, Italy. As an investigator he gained specific expertise on financial crimes, money laundering, terrorism financing, corruption and organized crime. Through the fourteen years of experience he supervised and conducted multiple complex investigations at both national and international level, in cooperation with the Italian Anti-Mafia Directorate (D.I.A.), Bank of Italy – F.I.U., and foreign law enforcement authorities and agencies such as Europol, Interpol, Eurojust and European Union Asset Recovery Offices.

Over the years, he gained a solid expertise on collecting evidences, also through the international cooperation, which has been particularly profitable in order to dismantle criminal organizations by freezing, seizing and confiscating assets generated by illegal activities, especially on transnational cases where different countries and context are involved.

As a trainer, he design and deliver training courses organized/supported by the WCO on Anti Money Laundering and Counter Financing of terrorism, where he i salso in charge of developping specific training materials and presentations, including tailor-made case studies and exercises, in compliance with Adult Learning strategies.

He holds a Master’s degree in Law and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Relations, plus several courses completed delivered by universities and international organization such as Georgetown University (Terrorism and Counterterrorism), UNODC (Anti-Corruption) and Interpol (Identifying and Addressing Counterfeit Wines).

He speaks english and french fluently and holds a basic knowledge of russian certified by the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute of Moscow.