Russian Financial Monitoring Service Chief to head Eurasian Group on Money Laundering

The Head of the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism has been elected.

Oleg Markov, the head of the Russian Federal Financial Monitoring Service, has been elected head of the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism (EAG), the Belarusian State Control Committee told.

"Russian Federal Financial Monitoring Service Chairman Oleg Markov was elected the EAG chairman at an international meeting of officials from financial intelligence services in the city of Xianya (China)," it said. Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov earlier held this position, it said.

Taking part in the meeting were delegations from the EAG member- states, i.e. Belarus, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, from organizations holding observer status at the EAG, i.e. the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the World Bank, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC), and Interpol, and also from the observer states, i.e. Armenia, Afghanistan, the United Kingdom, Italy, Moldova, the U.S., Turkey, and Ukraine.

The EAG member-states considered applications from India, Turkmenistan, and Poland on granting them observer status and satisfied their requests, it said.

Source: Interfax