FATF team reaches Islamabad to assess crackdown efforts

ISLAMABAD:A team from a regional affiliate of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) arrived in Islamabad on Monday to assess Pakistan’s progress in implementing global standards to counter terror financing and money laundering.

The visit comes a month after a meeting of the FATF in Paris said Pakistan has made “limited progress” in implementing an action plan to counter terror financing after it was placed in the watchdog’s “grey list” last June. The FATF urged Pakistan to implement certain components of the action plan by May.

The nine-member delegation of the Asia-Pacific Group (APG), led by its executive secretary Gordon Hook, will hold three days of talks with officials from the State Bank of Pakistan, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, Election Commission, foreign and interior ministries, National Counter Terrorism Authority, law enforcement agencies and counterterror departments.

“The meetings will start on Tuesday and will end on Thursday,” said finance ministry spokesman Khaqan Najeeb.

The FATF will decide in September whether Pakistan should be removed from its grey list or included in the black list, which will invite harsher sanctions.

Last month, the FATF said Pakistan had revised its terror financing risk assessment but it hadn’t demonstrated proper understanding of risks posed by Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Jamaatud-Dawah (JuD), Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF), Lashkar-eTaiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed

PAKISTAN IS UNDER INCREASED GLOBAL PRESSURE TO TAKE ACTION AGAINST TERROR GROUPS SUCH AS JAISH-E-MOHAMMED THAT CLAIMED RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE PULWAMA ATTACK

(JeM), Haqqani Network and persons affiliated with the Taliban.

In response to this criticism, Pakistan banned JuD and FIF, while the six other groups, including JeM, were declared “high risk” organisations, the Dawn newspaper reported.

Under the high risk category, the government will re-examine the activities of these groups through “heightened security checks at all layers of legal, administrative, investigative and financial regimes”, the report said. Their activities are subject to greater scrutiny by security agencies and state institutions.

The government has fined six banks and started investigations against 109 bankers for opening “fake” accounts. About 8,707 suspicious transaction reports were issued last year, up by almost 57% over the 5,548 reports in 2017.

Pakistan is also set to sign MoUs with the UK, Qatar, the UAE and Australia for intelligence-sharing.

The FATF reviews processes, systems and weaknesses on the basis of a standard matrix and Pakistan is being monitored on 27 indicators. The FATF wasn’t satisfied with Pakistan’s progress in achieving milestones set for January.