Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 11 / Trend I. Khalilova /
The Council of Europe XXXI plenary meeting of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering measures and the Financing of Terrorism (MONEYVAL) completes its work in Strasbourg. The State Committee for Securities chairman, inter-department working group on combat money laundry head Rufat Aslanli participates in it from the Azerbaijani side.
The meeting will be held on Dec. 7-11.
The previous meeting was held on September 21-24.
As a result of each meeting, Moneyval member-countries exchange information. The current situation is being discussed. Each country informs about its achievements and problems.
Adoption of the law 'Combating the legalization of money and property obtained criminally and financing of terrorism' has allowed Moneyval to reflect the positive achievements of the Republic.
The Moneyval plenary meeting decided to suspend the monitoring regime if all points of the presidential decree on the law to come into force are fulfilled: adoption of the Charter of the financial monitoring body, relevant amendments and changes to the Administrative Violations Code and the Penal Code.
Today, the Financial Monitoring Service operates under the Central Bank of Azerbaijan. The service must organize a centralized electronic information system to collect data, register legal and physical entities. The Financial Monitoring Service has information about participation in the legalization of money and property derived as a result of a criminal activity and financing of terrorism.
Foreign experts said that there is a high risk of money laundering and financing of terrorism in countries lacking mechanism of control.
Azerbaijan significantly meets with FATF standards. The assessment given to the country by Moneyval was higher than the estimate given within the inter-ministerial expert group.
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.
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