Council of Europe: Member states need to improve criminal asset recovery
BRUSSELS, June 20 (KUNA) -- The Council of Europeآ’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing body (MONEYVAL) warned that the recovery of proceeds from crime across states in Europe remains insufficient.
In its annual report for 2022, published Tuesday, it called on governments in Europe to step up their efforts to strengthen their national frameworks for asset management and recovery.
MONEYVAL said it has found that successful confiscations of criminal assets are relatively rare compared with the estimates of the proceeds of crime.
It, therefore, underlines the need not only to freeze but also to seize and confiscate criminal funds.
"States should not only improve their results in identifying and freezing criminal funds. There is also an urgent need for them to greatly improve their results in confiscating and managing criminal assets, adopt stricter sanctions and increase the number of convictions for serious money laundering offences," said Elzbieta Frankow-Jaskiewicz, Chair of MONEVYAL.
"Governments should invest more in their national programmes to combat money laundering and terrorist financing and adopt stricter policies to prevent the laundering of proceeds associated with corrupt regimes," she stressed.
In its annual report, MONEYVAL assesses compliance with international standards and developments in the legal and institutional frameworks to counter money laundering and the financing of terrorism in the 33 states and territories subject to its monitoring as of 31 December 2022.
Compliance with international standards remained particularly weak in financial sector supervision, money laundering convictions and confiscations, and sanctions for terrorism financing and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, it notes.
The Council of Europe, based in the French city of Strasbourg, is the continent's leading human rights organisation. It includes 46 member states, 27 of which are members of the European Union. (end) nk.mt.
