Law on Anti Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism is preparing in Turkmenistan

The Parliament of Turkmenistan is preparing a draft law on Anti Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism, an official Turkmen source said.

The document prepared by the Central Bank with the participation of IMF expert group will allow to improve Turkmenistan's efforts to combat organized crime and more effective contribution to the global fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.

In 2001 Turkmenistan joined the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (EAG) as observer. The Central Asian country has acceded to the basic documents of the UN in the field of the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Convention against Corruption.

The international experience shows that independent efforts of individual country are ineffective to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, and related criminal activities, because criminals can easily move assets across borders, avoiding detection. Special legislation is required to implement all necessary mechanisms, such as such as "know your client", and the related internal control that enables the private and financial sector to identify suspicious transactions and report them to the appropriate authorities.

Discussions of the new law will be held at the workshop "International experience to combat money laundering and terrorism financing" in Ashgabat. The workshop will be held for law enforcement agencies, bankers and deputies.

In March 2008,a similar workshop was organized with technical assistance from the World Bank, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), UN Agency for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Eurasian Group to Combat with money laundering and terrorist financing (EAG). During the event, officials from Turkmenistan's familiar with the work of financial intelligence units (FIUs), a body that collects, analyzes and processes confidential financial information and plays an important role in prevention and detection of negative facts, as at the national and international levels.

Source: Trend