Qatar’s efforts to combat money laundering a big success, says international agencies

Qatar, one of the richest countries in the world in terms of per capita income, has always had strict rules in place to ensure its wealth is not used by people for illegal purposes.

Numerous checks and balances have been put in place to prevent money laundering, terror financing or proliferation financing.

The country’s measures in this regard came in for huge praise recently, in the Mutual Evaluation Report for Qatar, compiled by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force (MENAFATF).

The Qatar Central Bank said the report evaluated the compliance and effectiveness of the AML/CFT system with international standards and confirmed the country’s control system is fully or largely committed to the 40 recommendations.

FATF said Qatar has a very strong legal and regulatory framework in place, making it the first country in the MENA region to have such a high level of compliance at this stage of the assessment.

With regard to the control system’s effectiveness, the report said Qatar obtained four basic levels of effectiveness. The AML/CFT system in Qatar was particularly effective in assessing and understanding the risks of money laundering, terrorist financing, supervision of the financial sector and risk-based supervision of the non-financial sector.

It was also effective in the seizure and confiscation of proceeds of crime, implementation of targeted financial sanctions related to combating terrorist financing, supervision and control of non-profit organizations and protecting it from terrorist financing operations.

The report said Qatar’s systems complied with FATF standards and was contributing to international efforts in combating financial crimes.

It also noted that the country was constantly working on improving the control system and enhancing it, based on international standards and best practices.

FATF adopted the FATF-MENAFATF Mutual Evaluation Report for Qatar in February 2023 while MENAFATF did so in May 2023.

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