The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has announced to keep Pakistan on its grey list while acknowledging that the country has fully implemented 26 out of 27 points of its action plan.
“Pakistan remains under increased monitoring
Dr. Marcus said Islamabad has largely addressed 26 of 27 items on FATF’s action plan. “However, one key item still needs to be completed which relates to the investigation and prosecution of senior commanders and leaders of UN designated terror groups,” the FATF chief added.
In addition to this, FATF President said a separate process has been taking place over the past few years and back in 2019 the FATF regional partner, the APG (Asia Pacific Group) identified number of serious issues during its assessment of Pakistan’s entire anti-money laundering and financing system. “Since then Pakistan has made improvement… this includes clear efforts to raise awareness in private sector.”
However, he said Pakistan is still failing to effectively implement number of measures to effectively curb the practices of money laundering. “This means risks of money laundering remain high which in turn can fuel corruption and organised crime.” The anti-money laundering body chief further said FATF has worked out a new action plan for Pakistan that largely focuses on money laundering risks.
“This includes increasing the number of prosecutions and investigations and also makes sure that law enforcement agencies cooperate internationally to trace, freeze and confiscate assets. I want to thank Pakistani government for their continued strong commitment to this process. Pakistan has already made substantial progress since the APG report first identified the issues,” he said.
The anti-money laundering watchdog has also given another six-point action plan pertaining to the Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) Process to Islamabad.
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