Azerbaijan, Baku, September 1 / Trend I.Khalilova /
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) sent a mission to Azerbaijan within technical assistance in combating laundering of "dirty" money and financing of terrorism, the IMF Baku office said on September 1. The mission will stay in Baku by September 4.
The IMF mission includes Director of Department of Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism, Giuseppe Lombardo, and chief economist of the Fiscal Affairs Department Daniel Thelesklaf, the same source said.
Azerbaijan was the first country to be assessed at the late 2003 in line with the provisions of Moneyval. These provisions envisage a complex of separate assessments in line with the every FATF standard and principle of "40+ 8" (40 standards to fight money laundry and 8 - financing terrorism). Each of the standards has several paragraphs with a total number of 180 subparagraphs.
Azerbaijan was referred with the category meeting the standards of FATF countries. After that the standards were supplemented with new standards on counteraction to financing of terrorism. The second evaluation was conducted in 2008, which was also described as constructive.
After assessment, Azerbaijan adopted the Bill on Counteraction to Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism. The Monitoring Service under the Central Bank Financial has been established recently.
The service should organize a centralized electronic information system to collect data, register legal entities and individuals, on which the financial monitoring service has information about participation in the legalization of money and property acquired by criminal means and the financing of terrorism.
The Service will held monitoring on credit organizations, insurance and reinsurance organizations, professional participants of securities market, leasing services of credit organizations, money transfers through post offices and other organizations, pawnshops, investment funds, transactions with precious metals and stones, and buying products from them and non-governmental and religious organizations, organizers of lotteries, people providing services on real estate sale-purchase (realtors) as well as lawyers, accountants, real estate transactions, client money, securities and property, client bank and deposit accounts.
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