BVI participates in FATF Meeting in London

Last week, an important meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) took place in London, - for the first time since the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) received the status of the associate member of the FATF in February 2008. During this plenary, FATF reported on the new steps taken to protect the international financial system from abuse. Among them – the reaffirmation of its February 2008 public statement on money laundering and terrorist financing risks posed by Uzbekistan, Iran, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Sao Tome and Principe and the northern part of Cyprus. The organization also discussed and adopted four mutual evaluation reports, assessing compliance with its 40 recommendations in Hong Kong, Qatar, the UAE and the Russian Federation.

Solicitor General of the British Virgin Islands, Jo-Ann Williams-Roberts, took part in this week-long plenary meeting, and the BVI was among the 5 member countries of 30 which were allowed to join the CFATF Secretariat at the meeting.

BVI Attorney General Kanthleen Quartey noted that a closer relationship between the FATF and its Caribbean counterparts would greatly benefit the CFATF, bringing issues and perspectives of the region directly to the centre stage.

The aim of the FATF which was established in 1989 is to prevent criminals from using the international financial systems. The CFATF was formed three years later as an organization of more than 30 Caribbean region states, which have united their efforts to implement common countermeasures to criminal money laundering.