Almost no money laundering prosecutions

Yesterday, the Third Standing Committee of the Legislative Assembly (AL) discussed the newly implemented law that aims to prevent money laundering and terrorism-financing activities.

According to Committee president Cheong Chi Keong, one of the topics discussed was the separation of the “prior crimes” that might be the origin of the money laundering activities.  Opinions expressed suggested that these “prior crimes” should be treated separately from the charge of money laundering. This would promote a “radical change” on laws currently in force, which follow the directives from the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG).

Cheang said, “the number of reports in the past 10 years are not few, but after being sent to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), “the cases were not pursued.”

He explained that “because most of these prior crimes were committed out of the territory’s jurisdiction, barriers to the application of the law are created.”

According to the figures cited by Cheang, “only about 10 cases reached the prosecution stage,” adding that “this happens because information from outside must be requested, and this information is sometimes provided too late when processes have already been archived.”

Methods of promoting this in the new law without “double penalization” and the penalties framework will be topics to be addressed in the upcoming meeting, said Cheang.

The second topic addressed was the supervision over the Bank Accounts, which, according to Cheang, is a topic on which the committee had received correspondence commenting on potential problems of implementation.

The government has said to the committee that there will be a transition period in which all rules will be explained clearly, especially to the Bank and Finance sectors as well as the Real Estate sector.

The final topic of discussion was the implementations directly related to the gaming sector. The topic has been slated by the government for further clarification in the next meeting.