Jersey's Anti-Money Laundering / Countering the Financing of Terrorism Strategy Group has released a report setting out pro-active plans to tackle criminals using the island's financial institutions to carry out their operations.
The report, named ‘The Strategy Document’, focuses around three goals,
which the group aims to achieve in the short-term in an attempt to make it both
difficult and costly for criminals to operate in Jersey.
Firstly, the Group aims to raise awareness of financial institutions' obligations
to tackle AML/CTF. The group plans to do this by issuing Codes of Practice (through
handbooks) that cover the legal and accounting sectors, estate agents, and high-value
goods dealers. It also intends to provide training and meet periodically with
industry bodies.
The Group's second aim is to raise awareness of methods and typologies used
by supporters of terrorism and/or money launderers through distributing training
materials to financial institutions.
Finally, they plan to enforce mandatory screening procedures for employees
within financial services businesses.
The Group stated:
“Crime is often committed to enable somebody to benefit from the proceeds
of that crime, e.g. theft or fraud. Whilst criminal conduct and the associated
laundering of proceeds cannot be wholly prevented, putting obstacles in the
way of criminals and making it more difficult and costly to launder the proceeds
of a crime can act as a powerful disincentive.
“The Strategy Group plans to carry out an annual review of the vulnerabilities
and goals identified in this document, the purpose of which will be to assess
the progress that has been made against each action point and an assessment
of the effectiveness of the action taken. Where the effectiveness of the action
taken towards achieving a goal is less than expected, the Strategy Group will
discuss the implementation of corrective or additional measures.”