Money laundering jeopardise the stability of countries’ finance mechanisms and their economies, a senior legal official said yesterday.
Counselor Ahmed Saeed Khalil, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Egyptian Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Combating Unit (EMLCU).
The three-day forum on Anti-money Laundering and Terrorism Financing opened yesterday in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
“Egypt realises that combating money laundering is not easy, requiring intense co-operation at national, regional and international level,” Khalil said.
“Those involved are now using complicated means to execute their criminal plans. Therefore, Egypt continuously seeks to take all decisive measures to combat money laundering in line with international methods,” Khalil explained.
“Standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) entail prpoer co-ordination between private and public institutions to exchange expertise and information to combat financial crimes.
“Egypt has set up committees to guarantee continued communication between all parties involved in combating money laundering and terrorism funding.
“A national assessment has been made of the risks of money laundering and terrorism financing to anticipate the parties involved in such crimes, their sources of funding and their methods for carrying them out.
“The world has witnessed radical development in IT in recent years. One important development is the emergence of virtual currencies that enable users to transfer money to anywhere in the world electronically unsupervised by any authority. This could be exploited in crimes related to money laundering and terrorism funding.
“All financial institutions must have precautionary measures in place against money laundering. Banks should obtain necessary data to identify the real beneficiary. Many criminals conceal their identities and use other legal persons to take on their criminal activities.
“The Egyptian government has adopted several methods to combat illicit financial transactions and rigorous surveillance systems for monitoring and detection have been put in place.
“The authorities are trained in ways to identify possible terrorist financing activities and investigate terrorism-related activities.
The forum is organised by the Union of Arab Banks (UAB), the UN Counter-Terrorism Centre and the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), bringing together 350 banking experts from 16 Arab and non-Arab countries.
In related news, Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) First Deputy Governor Gamal Negm said in a speech to the same event that Egyptian law matches international standards and keeps abreast of the latest development in anti-money laundering activity.
Negm gave this speech on behalf of acting CBE Governor Hassan Abdallah at the opening of the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Forum in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh.
The speech made reference to the importance of amending all anti-money laundering and terrorism funding legislation in with the latest technological advances in this domain.
The speech also highlighted the amendment of CBE law in 2020 to broaden the bank’s monitoring authority over the banking sector and all newly devised financial institutions affiliated to finance in order to maintain banking stability.
The event was organised by the Union of Arab Banks (UAB) in co-operation with the CBE.
