Financial Monitoring Unit Working Well To Curb Money Laundering

Rukhshan Mir (@rukhshanmir) Published January 06, 2017 | 03:15 PM

ISLAMABAD, Jan 6 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 06th Jan, 2017 ) : The government, as part of its measures to curb money laundering, has established a Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) to disseminate financial intelligence to designated Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and Financial Sector Regulators.

Highlighting the measures, sources at Interior Division on Friday said these included ratification of all relevant United Nations Conventions & Protocols in Anti-Money Laundering/Combating Financing of Terrorism Domain.

The enactment of Anti Money Laundering Act, 2010, issuance of Anti Money Laundering Regulations, 2008 & 2015 under Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010 and constitution of National Executive Committee and General Committee under AML Act, 2010 were another key steps taken to control the crime.

The sources said four LEAs i.e. National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Anti-Narcotic Force (ANF) and Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) were designated with their distinct mandate/jurisdiction to conduct investigation and prosecution of money laundering cases.

Moreover, the sources said State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) pro-actively issued regulations in Anti-Money Laundering/Combating Financing of Terrorism areas e.g.

Customer Due Diligence, Correspondent Banking Wire Transfers, Reporting of Transactions, Record Keeping, Internal Controls, Policies, Compliance, Audit & Training to meet their Anti-Money Laundering/Combating Financing of Terrorism obligations under FATF standards.

The concerned Division also arranged capacity building programmes for Anti-Money Laundering/Combating Financing of Terrorism stakeholders including LEAs, Regulators, FMU, Ministries, Regulated Entities, Judges & Prosecutors.

The sources said introduction of declaratory regime for physical movement of currency & bearer negotiable instruments, revision of Currency Transaction Report (CTR) Threshold to Rs. 2 million and maximum coverage of Predicate Offences in terms of international standards were another measures adopted to curb the menace.