Director of the Russian Federal Financial Monitoring Service Viktor Zubkov attends the Constituent Assembly of the Russian Association of Lawyers. The event took place in the House of Unions oval hall.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
|
 |
EAG to Have Financial Intelligence by 2008
All states that are members of Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing Terrorism (EAG) will pass basic acts to oppose money laundering and create services of financial surveillance, Viktor Zubkov, chief of Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service and chairman of EAG, said as quoted by rbc.ru.
Of seven member states, five (Russia, Belarus, China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan) have basic laws and services of financial intelligence now. Kazakhstan and Tadjikistan are expected to pass such laws in the first quarter of 2007. Based on the laws, it will be decided what particular bodies in those countries will deal with money laundering and funding actions of terror, Zubkov said.
The information interchange will accelerate once EAG members set up the national systems to oppose money laundering, Zubkov specified. According to the official, EAG member-states face “colossal drug traffic from Afghanistan, big money that is difficult to account, as it passes not via financial institutions but in cash.” “The situation in EAG region can drastically improve in two or three years,” Zubkov predicted.
Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing Terrorism (EAG) was founded by decision of the Council of CIS Foreign Ministers in October 2004. The member states are Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and China, while the observers are Great Britain, Georgia, Italy, the United States, Ukraine, France and Turkey as well as a number of foreign organizations, including FATF, IMF, World Bank, Interpol, the Council of Europe and others.
www.kommersant.com
|
|
|
