CEIB to list sectors vulnerable to terror-financing, laundering
Mukesh Ranjan
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, November 7
The Central Economic Intelligence Bureau (CEIB) in association with the Reserve Bank of India and central agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate has started assessing sectors that may be vulnerable to money laundering and terror-financing.
The exercise has begun ahead of India’s evaluation by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which is likely to take place sometime around May 2022.
Sources in the government said a national risk assessment (NRA) had currently been undertaken and the task of doing this had been assigned to the CEIB, which is an arm of the Finance Ministry.
The CEIB has closely been coordinating with all intelligence and enforcement agencies, including the RBI, to further improve the inter-agency cooperation and strengthen mechanism for taking actions against suspicious entities engaged in money laundering and terror financing, they added.
The FATF, a Paris-based inter-governmental body, had recently retained Pakistan on its ‘Grey List’ for failing to comply with its directions to take action against banned terrorist outfits and UN-designated terrorists. Pakistan has, thus, been denied access to financial institutions and banks recognised by the Paris-based inter-governmental body.
India too had played its role during the last meeting of the FATF where Indian representatives had pressed Pakistan to show their record of prosecution of terror-related organisations and individuals.
India’s own FATF assessment has been pending since 2019 and postponed twice amid Covid-19, sources said, adding an internal assessment earlier had found lack of conviction in a large number of cases registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. In the light of this, the government had asked the ED and CBI to file chargesheets in a time-bound manner and ensure convictions in cases where prosecution complaints and chargesheets had been filed.
