85 money laundering cases involving P1.3 billion filed in 8 months

MANILA, Philippines — The Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) has filed 85 criminal and civil cases involving about P1.31 billion from January to August as the Philippines continues to ramp up its battle against money launderers and financiers of terrorist activities.

AMLC chairman and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno said the financial intelligence unit continues to carry out improvements and initiatives against money laundering and terrorism financing despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“From January to August, the AMLC filed a total of 85 cases, civil and criminal, involving over P1.31 billion and other assets,” Diokno said.

He said the AMLC continues to strengthen its ties with other local agencies and other jurisdictions for further effective and efficient coordination and collaboration.

It has signed memoranda of understanding (MOU) with 51 jurisdictions and memoranda of agreements (MOAs) with 39 law enforcement and government agencies including the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).

The AMLC has also tied up with the Philippine National Police (PNP) for the creation of a “fusion center” to foster cooperation and coordination to effectively prevent, control, detect, investigate and prosecute terrorism financing and money laundering as well as its predicate crimes.

This fusion center, the core of information and intelligence exchange between the PNP and AMLC, would ultimately optimize resources, simplify processes, and build the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) capacity of both agencies.

Paris-based global dirty money watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) reincluded the Philippines in the gray list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring last June 25 after the country failed to address the technical deficiencies raised by the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) under its October 2019 Mutual Evaluation Report (MER).

The Philipppines continues to register improvements in the compliance as it adopted a whole-of-government approach with the implementation of the National Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Strategy for 2018 to 2022 (NACS).

The NACS continues to progress through its National AML/CFT Coordinating Committee and its subcommittees.

Diokno said the AMLC has signed 18 information-sharing protocol agreements with eight banks, nine money service businesses and one industry association.

“The information-sharing protocol enables collaboration between the AMLC and private sector in the areas of information exchange and capacity-building,” the AMLC chief said.

The AMLC also amended the AML/CTF regulations to strengthen the Philippines’ supervisory framework, Diokno reported.

This led to upgrades in Recommendations 4, 6, 7, 20, 22, 23 and 24 to largely compliant and Recommendation 29 to compliant under the FATF 40 Recommendations.

“Thus, with a more robust framework in place, improvements in AML/CTF operations are expected, demonstrating the Philippines’ progress toward a more effective AML/CTF regime,” Diokno said.

According to DIokno, the country’s exit from the list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring or the gray list of the global dirty money watchdog requires commitment and cooperation among the public and private sectors in addressing all 18 International Cooperation Review Group action plan items.

“The country must demonstrate that its AML/CTF system is delivering expected results, and failure to do so will have repercussions on the economy. But beyond mere compliance, we must also grasp that this is about fundamentally strengthening our AML/CTF system that would prove beneficial to the country even beyond our lifetime,” Diokno added.