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| Move to boost crackdown on terrorist finance |
| 2004-02-29 |
| The Financial Action Task Force, the international body that combats money laundering, on Friday unveiled plans to improve information exchange between countries on terrorist financing. The FATF, at a meeting in Paris, also announced it was removing Egypt and the Ukraine from its blacklist of countries that do not have adequate controls against money laundering. Better information exchange between countries on methods used by terrorist groups to fund their activities is vital to tackle organisations such as al-Qaeda. One possible reform by the FATF could be exchange of reports about suspected money laundering that are filed by banks to regulators. The FATF’s 31-member countries, mainly from the Americas and western Europe, reached political agreement with 13 non-member countries on the need to develop better mechanisms to collect and share information on terrorist financing. The 13 countries include some previously accused of being important sources of funds for terrorist groups, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. they blinked - but let’s see what the follow-though is The other non-member countries at the FATF meeting were Algeria, Bahrain, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan and the Philippines. They participated in a seminar on terrorist financing that focused on the risks posed by underground banking systems, cash couriers, charities and drugs trafficking. Claes Norgren, FATF president, said: "This seminar played an important role in helping us reach out to key partners in the international effort against the financing of terrorism." I’m of two minds on this - no fan of overarching international government groups, but the terror networks are exactly the kind of threats that work the gaps, so the gaps need to be filled in |
| Posted by:rkb |