FATF Praises Russian Anti-Money Laundering Efforts

by Tatiana Smolenskaya, for LawAndTax-News.com, Moscow

08 June 2004

Speaking at a recently held conference on Corporate Governance and Economic Growth in Russia, president of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Claes Norgren praised the authorities for their efforts in countering money laundering and terrorism over the past few years, but urged the government to continue improving the legislation in this area.

Singling out the head of the Russian Federal Financial Monitoring Service, Viktor Zubkov for especial praise, Mr Norgren commended the fact that not only has Russia made significant progress in its own right in the introduction of new laws to clamp down on money laundering, but it has provided assistance to other countries in the region.

However, despite expressing the FATF's pride in the government's efforts, the head of the multilateral organisation went on to observe that the national legislation needs to be strengthened in order to restrict the laundering of illegal money still further, and to improve the general economic environment.

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