Terrorism financing

Serbia is among several countries that have misused legislation passed to meet Financial Action Task Force, FATF, standards to combat money laundering and terrorism financing to investigate critical voices and NGOs, Reuters reported on Thursday.

Military uniforms, rifle scopes, combat boots, tactical gear, firearms accessories and range finders: these were just some of the items that were bought with money that Ramiz Zijad Hodzic, a man from Bosnia and Herzegovina who was living in the United States, was convicting of raising for terrorist fighters in the Middle East.

The Turkish financial crimes unit slammed a global money laundering watchdog report against the country's money laundering efforts.

"Turkey's struggles weren't revealed in the report. [Turkey] was subjected to unfair assessment," Turkey's Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) officials told Anadolu Agency on Dec. 19 on a recent report by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Turkish authorities must address shortcomings in tackling money laundering and terrorism financing or face being added to a "grey list" of countries with inadequate financial controls, according to a global money laundering watchdog.

Drug trafficking in Greece in 2016 is estimated at 200 million euros, while the amount of taxes lost as a result of cigarette smuggling in the same year is put at 431.8 million euros, and illegal migrant trafficking is seen as having led to gains of 367 million euros for the smugglers.

Prime Minister Ana Brnabic met today in Belgrade with a delegation of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), and on that occasion, she introduced the members of the delegation with the activities that our country implements in the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing.

The 28 member states of the European Union all backed a decision on March 7 to reject a proposal from the EU executive to add Saudi Arabia to a blacklist of countries suspected of being lax on terrorist financing and money-laundering.

The Council of Europe's body for preventing money laundering and the financing of terrorism, MONEYVAL, has released a statement saying that Serbia has progressed in meeting recommendations in the area, but that it will remain under a regime of heightened supervision and that it is supposed to hand in a new progress report in December 2019.

The European Commission added Saudi Arabia, Panama, Nigeria and other jurisdictions to a blacklist of nations that pose a threat because of lax controls on terrorism financing and money laundering, the EU executive said on Feb. 13.

The EU's committee of permanent representatives (Coreper) today endorsed an agreement between the Council, represented by the Bulgarian presidency, and the European Parliament on a draft regulation aimed at improving controls on cash entering or leaving the Union.