Money laundering, Albania again on the gray list of 23 countries - June FATF report: Lack of concrete criminal proceedings, penalties for non-declaration of data

FATF, the European Financial Action Task Force, has placed Albania on the list of countries under increased supervision for the risk of money laundering, shortly after Moyval concluded that Albania has improved the legal framework for preventing this risk. In contrast to Moneyval, which oversees the legislation of the states. The European Financial Action Task Force measures concrete results in the fight against the prevention of money laundering.

And in the plenary meeting held this June, the Task Force emphasizes precisely the lack of concrete results in the investigation and bringing to justice the persons involved in money laundering.

“Albania must continue to work on the implementation of the action plan to address the shortcomings, which include: first, providing an appropriate legal framework for establishing acceptable and convincing sanctions for non-registration of data by companies and NGOs; and secondly, an increase in the number of criminal proceedings for money laundering, especially as regards offenses initiated abroad.

In the list of 23 countries, countries widely known as tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, Burkina Faso, Gibraltar, Barbados, Pakistan, Panama, the Philippines, and Turkey stand out.

The exit of Malta stands out in this year’s gray list, which, according to the FATF, has taken a series of measures to address financial control of foreign companies.

One of the factors that brought about the improvement of Albania in the eyes of the European structures in terms of money laundering was the creation of the register of beneficial owners as well as the legal framework for the proceeding and confiscation of suspicious money. But the register of beneficial owners has not yet been put into full operation, while there have been no cases of confiscation of significant financial sums.