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Corruption. Corruption has been the most significant problem within Georgia's law enforcement agencies. Georgia's anti- corruption efforts continue to be hampered by the widespread tolerance of corruption within Georgian society. During 2001 the Government of Georgia formed a commission to reform the law enforcement agencies (so-called "power ministries"). The commission developed a strategy for reorganization that was forwarded to the Georgian National Security Council; however, no significant changes were made. In any case, none of these proposed measures can truly ameliorate the situation given the low wages of officials and poor standard of behavior from those in charge that nourish wide-scale, low level corruption. The new hope of eradicating corruption within the system emerged with the appointment of a new Minister of Internal Affairs, who has publicly and repeatedly announced his commitment to combating corruption and the trafficking ... [Read More]

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]

J) Europe and Central Asia

Drug Flow/Transit. Steady supplies of heroin and cocaine enter the UK. Although some 90 percent of heroin in the UK (amounting to around 30 tons a year) normally comes from Southwest Asia, chiefly Afghanistan, the quantity of opiates entering the UK in 2001 was distorted by the ban on opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan instituted by the Taliban in July 2000, and thereafter effectively enforced. Trafficking was not banned, however, and supplies of Afghan opium stock from previous years’ crops were released and supplied to the markets in Western Europe and the UK. This situation resulted in an initial decline in opiates reaching the UK, followed by a sharp increase from depressed levels, beginning in the fall of 2001. A significant amount of the heroin eventually imported into the UK is handled at some point by UK-based Turkish criminal groups although Turkish criminals in the Netherlands and Belgium also channel heroin to the UK. Pakistani traffickers also play a significant par ... [Read More]

International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports

US DEPARTMENT OF STATEBUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS MATTERSINTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL STRAGEGY REPORTAPRIL 1994FINANCIAL CRIMES AND MONEY LAUNDERING1994 INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL STRATEGY REPORTINTERNATIONAL MONEY LAUNDERINGOVERVIEWIntelligence findings from North and South America, Eastern and Western Europe, South and East Asia, Africa and the Middle East confirm that another significant shift has occurred in money laundering trends and methods, requiring changes in policy and strategy for 1994.The critical aspects are the volume of non-drug related money laundering; increased investment of illegal proceeds in legitimate business, including the financial industry; and the targeting of financial systems in countries/territories (some with little or no domestic involvement in drug trading or other serious proceeds-generating crimes) to launder drug and other proceeds generated by crimes committed in other jurisdictions.In 1988, when the United Nations Convention was ... [Read More]

M) Money Laundering and Financial Crimes

On January 13, 2000, Italy signed the UN International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and the Italian Parliament ratified the Convention in December 2002. In October 2001, Italy passed a Decree that created the Inter Ministerial Financial Security Committee, which is charged with coordinating GOI efforts to track and interdict terrorist financing. The Committee has far reaching powers that include obtaining information from all government ministries in waiver of the Official Secrecy Act and the authority to order a freeze of terrorist-related assets. Another decree issued in October 2001 criminalized the financing of terrorist activity with a penalty of imprisonment of seven to fifteen years. Decree Law No. 12/2002 extends the suspicious transaction reporting requirement to cover terrorist financing. Entities subject to the reporting requirement must also inform UIC of any freezing measures they take with ... [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]

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]

International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL STRATEGY REPORTMARCH 1995BUREAU FOR INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS FINANCIAL CRIMES AND MONEY LAUNDERING11995 INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL STRATEGY REPORTOVERVIEWThere were a number of significant accomplishments in the world of money laundering in 1994, and a number of new and/or intensified concerns. Accomplishments and concerns are summarized here and explained in detailed sections below.Accomplishments. Several financial center governments, such as Singapore and Panama, have adopted broad, new anti-money laundering policies and/or laws, and a number of governments were in the final stages of presenting/adopting new legislation.The Financial Action Task Force completed the evaluations of each of its 26 member governments, all conducted by outside experts and all culminating in recommendations for changes and improvements which will be monitored through continuing examinations be ... [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]