Money laundering | Leong: Efforts to spot suspicious transactions increased
Lionel Leong (center) during yesterday’s opening ceremony
The 24th Egmont Group Plenary Meeting concludes today. More than 110 financial intelligence organizations and over 350 representations are attending the event.
In 2009, the Macau Financial Intelligence Office (GIF) joined the Egmont Group, which has over 150 members.
The Secretary for Finance and Economy, Lionel Leong, made a short speech at the beginning of the meeting’s opening ceremony. “GIF has been set up accordingly to collect, analyze, and disseminate information in relation to suspicious transactions. GIF also co-ordinates the interdepartmental anti-money laundering and terrorist financing working group, which consists of 15 supervisory, judicial and law enforcement agencies,” said Leong. He added that, “through participation in the Egmont Group, both GIF and Macau have gained from the experience of fellow members on their fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. The effective sharing of information through the Egmont Secure Web platform has undoubtedly multiplied the knowledge of GIF and law enforcement agencies of Macau in these years, [also increasing] their analysis and investigation of suspicious money laundering and other predicate crimes.”
Since its establishment, GIF has signed 20 cooperation agreements with fellow FIUs, according to Leong, including those in Asia Pacific, Europe and North America regions. One of these agreements was signed in the plenary meeting currently underway.
As mentioned by Leong, the Egmont Group has also played an important role in facilitating the process. Leong stated that “we are looking forward to more agreements with other members’ FIUs.”
“2017 is a very important year for Macau from the perspective of AML/CFT work,” said Leong, adding that the moment is opportune, as Macau has just amended two laws on anti-money laundering and terrorist financing.
“At the end of the year, Macau will also adopt the cross-border cash declaration system and be in line with international practices,” declared Leong. He concluded by saying that “in two weeks’ time, the APG Mutual Evaluation Report of Macau will also be adopted in the APG Annual Meeting, for which many entities in the public and private sectors of Macau have been working very hard for years to prepare.”
