Russia Draws Up Its Own Financial Blacklist

by Tatiana Smolenska, Tax-News.com, Moscow

01 April 2003

Russia has decided to create its own blacklist of non-cooperative countries in the fight against dirty money - a mere five months after being dropped from the official FATF (Financial Action Task Force) list itself.

Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov ordered the drawing up of the list on recommendations from the Foreign Ministry, Federal Security Service and Federal Intelligence Service. It is expected that companies and prominent individuals who have a presence in these countries will be under close scrutiny from the Financial Monitoring Committee, which is drawing up the list.

According to the Moscow Times, Committee spokeswoman Natalya Konovalova said the list is not expected to differ from the official blacklist held by the FATF (Financial Action Task Force), an arm of the OECD. The ten countries still on the FATF blacklist are: the Cook Islands, Egypt, Guatemala, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nauru, Nigeria, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Philippines and Ukraine. Konovalova said the Russian version will not exceed this number.

The Financial Monitoring Committee was set up in February of last year as Russia stepped up its fight against money laundering. It is informed of all registered transactions of over 600,000 rubles ($19,120) and keeps records on individuals who conduct large numbers of smaller transactions over short periods of time.

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