Under the presidency of Abdullah bin Zayed… a meeting in the UAE to confront money laundering and terrorism financing
UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Sheikh Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri chaired a meeting of the Supreme Committee overseeing the national strategy to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
During the meeting, which was the 17th of the committee, the commitment of the UAE to continue working on developing the national system to counter money laundering and terrorist financing was emphasized.
An update on the work under the national strategy, the requirements of the action plan were also reviewed by the FATF, and the outcomes of the meeting with the FATF Control Group on 12 January 2023.
It was also stressed during the Supreme Committee meeting that it is important for all parties and task forces to continue their efforts to ensure the effectiveness of the system to address money laundering and terrorist financing in a sustainable manner.
During the meeting, the Executive Office for Countering Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing presented progress made in the areas of the action plan, which included international cooperation, oversight of financial sectors, business sectors and non-financial professions, registrars of companies, financial information, investigation of money laundering crimes, targeted financial sanctions and financing of arms proliferation.
The presentation also included progress in dealing with requests for international cooperation, increasing human resources at regulators, while continuing to be effective in risk-based monitoring and action against offending companies. The development in the use of financial information in investigations and the increase in the resources of the Financial Information Unit were also addressed.
On the level of corporate registrars, the presentation included recent developments in the risk assessment of legal persons and the application of the risk-based approach. On the subject of targeted financial sanctions and the financing of arms proliferation, the UAE’s achievements were reviewed and all requirements were met.
Abdullah bin Touq al-Marri reviewed; During the meeting, the UAE Minister of Economy highlighted his ministry’s efforts as a monitor to implement the requirements of the national strategy to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, and operational and operational plans to implement initiatives and activities that meet the requirements of the state’s mutual evaluation.
UAE officials are focusing on job creation and building technical systems, in addition to holding awareness and training workshops for the private sector and registrars of companies in the country, including in free zones, he said.
The UAE Ministry of Economy held more than 22 workshops for 13,026 participants from the private sector in 2022 and 27 meetings with company registrars through the country’s sub-committee for company registrars, in order to implement awareness-raising plans and enhance the understanding of registrars in order to meet the requirements for organizing real beneficiary data and implementing an integrated national system to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, bin Touq al-Marri said.
The ministry’s efforts to inspect about 440 companies from the specified non-financial sectors and professions resulted in 42 warnings and 125 fines of about 9,450,000 dirhams for violating companies, he said.
Bin Touq al-Marri said the ministry continues to implement its requirements to combat money laundering and terrorist financing in an effective and dissuasive manner in order to achieve a safe and business-friendly economic environment in the UAE.
For its part, the Executive Office for Countering Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing noted that the number of international cooperation requests issued has increased steadily, reaching more than 200 requests, as have the monitoring agencies, which reached more than 750 operations over the past year, in addition to office inspections, where the value of violations reached approximately 75 million dirhams.
Company registrars sanctioned non-compliant companies, with nearly 3,000 violations, while the UAE continued to investigate money laundering, which amounted to about 270 cases. More than 3 billion dirhams of illicit proceeds have been confiscated.
During the meeting, a plan of action was adopted for the next stage, which includes all the necessary procedures to complete the requirements of the financial working group, in addition to the steps to prepare for the field visit, which include a number of training and qualification programs for all concerned parties.
