Finance Division and Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) are collecting data including feedback/statistics on Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) disseminated to law enforcement agencies to check any suspected banking transactions involving money laundering under Anti-Money Laundering Act. Sources told Business Recorder here on Thursday that the Finance Division's AML-I section has written a letter to the Director General FMU Karachi in this regard.
According to experts, few examples of potential suspicious transactions highlighting the basic ways in which money may be laundered including transactions which do not make economic sense; transactions involving unidentified parties; transactions inconsistent with the customer's business and transactions involving large amounts of cash. The concerned authorities wanted to analyse the final outcome/progress made by Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) on the STRs disseminated to them by FMU. An important meeting of officials of Finance Division and Interior Division with the officials of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) is being scheduled for August 7, 2014, wherein the progress of the LEAs in the said context will be discussed.
The letter of the Finance Division's AML-I section to the Director General FMU Karachi has referred to Financial Monitoring Unit's letters regarding Suspicious transaction Reports (STRs) and Mutual Evaluation Report. In pursuance of section 6(4)(g) of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010, the Financial Monitoring Unit(FMU) has been requesting for provision of the feedback/statistics, actions taken and final outcome on each STR for the purpose of updating the progress on Regional Review Group(RRG) action Plan, compliance of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations and Pakistan's Mutual Evaluation Report.
Now the FATF in its recent June, 2014 plenary after reviewing progress on Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT), has delisted Pakistan from its Public Statement and authorised an onsite visit which is expected by mid-August, 2014. During the visit the team would analyse the level of implementation on AML/CFT measures including inspection of data pertaining to final outcome/progress made by Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) on the STRs disseminated to them by FMU. Before the On-site visit, the statistics/feedback needs to be in place for presentation. It is therefore requested that the requisite information may be furnished to FMU.
Besides, a meeting of officials of Finance Division and Interior Division with the officials of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) is being scheduled for August 7, 2014, wherein the progress of the LEAs in the above context will also be deliberated upon.
Sources added that in terms of Section 6(4)(g), FMU has been entrusted to get feedback on the disseminated financial intelligence from the designated LEAs. The purpose of the feedback is to keep updated status of information disseminated to the agencies and to get further suggestions in bringing improvement/addition in the financial intelligence. The shared feedback will be used as valuable reference in preparation of typologies & other reports. It is therefore necessary to provide feedback on the financial intelligence disseminated to law enforcement agency. Your co-operation in this regards will be highly appreciated.
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