Real Estate In Bulgaria
U.S. Embassy in Nicaragua - Economic and Commercial Section
Foreign donors pledge 1.8 billion (March)1111Nicaragua's bilateral and multilateral donors in an 1111April 1-2 meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, pledged 1.8 billion dollars in 1111new assistance over the period 1998-2000. That is well above the 1.2 1111billion dollars that the Nicaraguan Government had previously indicated it 1111expected to receive. The U.S. pledged 35.7 million dollars for 1998 and a 1111total of 145 million dollars over the next five years. Given the tight 1111spending targets under Nicaragua's ESAF and its weak external accounts, 1111this donor assistance will allow the government to bridge its financing 1111gaps and maintain social sector spending as it waits to qualify for 1111substantial foreign debt relief starting in the year 2000 (debt service 1111payments in 1997 were equivalent to 15 percent of GDP). 1111 BUILDING MORE LINES: ENITEL PREPARES FOR PRIVATIZATION 1111(MARCH)1111 [Read More]
Cyprus (07/05)
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M) Money Laundering and Financial Crimes
The following are summaries of the most significant priority issues:Refocus Efforts of High Intensity Financial Crime Areas (HIFCAs). HIFCAs are special, high-risk areas or sectors where law enforcement will concentrate its resources and energy to combat money laundering. The 2001 Strategy mandated that the HIFCA task forces become operational and conduct investigations designed to result in indictments, convictions, and seizures, rather than focus primarily on intelligence gathering. Each of the six HIFCA Task Forces is now actively working cases. HIFCA Task Forces are composed of, and draw upon, all relevant federal, state, and local agencies. The Departments of Treasury and Justice jointly supervise the HIFCA Task Forces, and the 2001 Strategy primarily tasks the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) and Justice’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section to develop an advanced money laundering training program to enhance the HIFCA Task Forces’ abili ... [Read More]
International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports
FINANCIAL CRIMES AND MONEY LAUNDERINGMONEY LAUNDERINGOVERVIEWIn 1992, the major trends affecting money laundering policy were: (1) further sophistication of money laundering practices; (2) greater investment of drug and other illicit proceeds into established businesses, both to conceal money movements and to capitalize on illicit profits; (3) the internationalization of money laundering networks whose operations involve an ever larger number of countries and territories, regardless of their importance as financial centers or as drug producing or transit countries; and (4) the intensified involvement of the Sicilian Mafia and other criminal organizations in Europe, Asia and the Western Hemisphere who comingle proceeds from many crimes to confound investigators, and are now acting as brokers for funds unrelated to their own trafficking activities. These trends have made it more difficult to differentiate between drug-related money laundering and other forms of illegal money m ... [Read More]
Summary of Property Restitution in Central and Eastern Europe
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Country Reports: G-M
Gabon Gabon is not a regional financial center. The Bank of Central African States (BEAC) supervises Gabon’s banking system. BEAC is a regional Central Bank that serves six countries of Central Africa. According to a 2003 letter from the Government of Gabon (GOG) to the UN Counter Terrorism Committee, in matters concerning suspicious financial transactions, banks are bound by the instructions of the Ministry of Economic and Financial Affairs. The actual monitoring of financial transactions is conducted by the Economic Intervention Service that harmonizes the regulation of currency exchanges in the member States of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC). On November 20, 2002, the BEAC Board of Directors approved draft anti-money laundering a ... [Read More]
Money Laundering and Financial Crimes
(1) Patterns of Global Terrorism—1999, United States Department of State Publication 10687, April 2000.A wide-ranging joint FBI and Department of Treasury investigation into interstate cigarette smuggling, involving a suspected Hizballah terrorist cell operating in Charlotte, North Carolina, led to the July 21, 2000 arrest by U.S. authorities of 18 individuals. Ten days later a federal grand jury in North Carolina indicted these individuals, including seven suspected Hizballah supporters, for immigration fraud and related bribery and conspiracies; conspiring to smuggle contraband cigarettes; and conspiring to launder money. Many of the defendants continue to be detained prior to trial, while the investigation continues. At least seven of the defendants are suspected members of, or sympathetic to Hizballah, a foreign terrorist organization designated as such under U.S. law in 1997 and again in 1 ... [Read More]
Money Laundering and Financial Crimes
Specifically, the Strategy calls for (1) designating high-risk money laundering zones at which to direct coordinated law enforcement efforts; (2) rules requiring the scrutiny of suspicious activities in a range of financial institutions, from money transmitters to broker-dealers and casinos; (3) submission of the Administration's Money Laundering Act of 1999, to bolster the domestic and international crimes-from arms trafficking to public corruption and fraud-subject to U.S. money laundering prosecutions; (4) a 90-day review of measures that would restrict the use of correspondent accounts in the United States by certain offshore or other institutions that pose money laundering risks; and (5) intensified pressure on nations that lack adequate counter-money laundering controls to adopt them. The following are priority Strategy action items which will be implemented immediately: Promote adoption of supervisory and regulatory actions (to include items such as increased regulatory ... [Read More]
Country Reports: G-M
A reorganization has placed the AMLS in the Directorate against Organized Crime (ORFK(SZEBI)). As a police unit, the AMLS also investigates cases. The AMLS has considerable authority to request and release information, nationally and internationally, related to money laundering investigations. To December 2003, AMLS received 11,269 STRs, 2000 from nonbanking institutions. Staffing at the AMLS has tripled since 2002 in order to deal with the rapid increase in the number of STRs received from the expanded range of reporting institutions, and further increases are coming, commensurate with its increased responsibility. AMLS staff members, along with PSzAF employees, are involved in training and raising awareness of employees within the obligated institutions, as well as members of the general public. Most recently, they held training for police, prosecutors, and customs agents in May 2003. Of the STRs received in 2003, only ten are currently under investigation. AMLS official ... [Read More]
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