Russia to be audited

FAFT inspectors can exclude Russia from the list of money-laundering nations
Financial Action Task Force (FATF) experts started their inspection of the Russian government today. They want to know to what extent the struggle with money laundering is effective in Russia. Russia’s Vice-Premier Alexey Kudrin is sure that, next year, Russia will be removed from the list of countries that don’t stop money laundering.

The inspection starts today. A FATF delegation consisting of representatives of the organization’s member countries, the USA, France, Germany, and Switzerland, will work in Moscow for the whole week. The inspectors plan to hold consultations with the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank of Russia, the Russian Committee for Financial Monitoring, and other departments. Based on the results of the inspection, a report is to be issued, which is believed will remove Russia from the FATF’s black list. When Russia was included in the black list, the government took every possible measure to leave it as soon as possible. A Committee for Financial Monitoring was created in the RF Ministry of Finance a year ago, which was immediately nicknamed “financial intelligence.” REGIONS.Ru informed that the committee has already completed several investigations that will soon entail large-scale disclosures of financial abuses among the Russian finance elite. Chairman of the committee, Viktor Zubkov, continues to say that the organization is taking every action in close contact with the FATF.

Russian Vice-Premier Alexey Kudrin met Viktor Zubkov on September 10 and noted the considerable progress in the work of the committee. In Kudrin’s words, the committee managed to build an effective system to struggle with money laundering within a year since its foundation. The vice-premier says that the laundering system includes enterprises, banks, and fake individuals that make payments. It was mentioned that cooperation of the committee with financial intelligence in other countries has proved to be very fruitful. For example, criminal cases have been registered in connection with financial crimes on the basis of information obtained from the Committee for Financial Monitoring. What a pity that Russia knows little about this success! Hopefully, the committee will maintain closer contacts with the Russian mass media. Russian authorities hope that the investigations held will improve the FATF’s impression of Russia. Let’s see if the foreign commission will be well-disposed to Russia’s success in the struggle with money laundering.

Kira Poznakhirko PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Maria Gousseva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/09/23/47457.html

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