FATF criticizes Australia
Both the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and its recommendations have already been described previously. This post, however, is more about the practical work carried out by the FATF.
A new FATF report suggests that Australia’s enforcement of laws against money laundering is falling short, delivering just few prosecutions. So, its federal government has been urged to reinforce Australia’s laws against money-laundering and terrorist financing. The FATF criticizes the enforcement regime as money laundering is seldom pursued as a separate offence outside of legislation dealing with the proceeds of crime.
The Financial Action Task Force considers the legislative framework to deal with about USD2-3 billion laundered in Australia yearly.
Australia’s laws dealing with the financing of terrorism have also been criticized by the FATF. In accordance with the report, the measures related to terrorist funding must go further. By the way, no prosecutions for terrorist financing have been seen by the FATF yet.
The report finds AUSTRAC, the national police financial crime unit, to be an effective organisation. However, it considers the agency to have failed to apply the full range of compliance tools available to it in the legislation.
The Financial Action Task Force report provides Australia with more than 90 recommendations to improve its anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing regime.