Lilian Karp
The document, drafted by the Service for the Prevention and Combating of Money Laundering, sets out the directions for developing the national system for preventing and combating money laundering in the context of aligning the Republic of Moldova’s legislation with European Union standards and the EU accession process.
The program is structured around three priorities: strengthening public policies and institutional cooperation at the national and international levels; reducing the risks of funds derived from criminal activities or intended to finance terrorism entering the legal financial system; as well as increasing the effectiveness of detecting, investigating, and prosecuting crimes related to money laundering, terrorist financing, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Vulnerabilities
The authors of the document note that the main vulnerabilities of the system remain the high level of cash usage in the economy, the increase in the number of non-resident customers and cross-border transactions, insufficient supervision of reporting entities, inconsistent quality of suspicious transaction reporting, the low number of convictions for money laundering, and limited recovery of proceeds of crime.
In this context, a separate chapter is devoted to increasing transparency regarding the beneficial owners of legal entities and facilitating authorities’ access to this information. The program also provides for strengthening the oversight of reporting entities and more effective enforcement of financial sanctions in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions, including through the operational freezing of funds belonging to individuals and entities included on sanctions lists.
According to Lilian Carp, chair of the Committee on National Security, Defense, and Public Order, the new program builds on the results of previous strategies, avoids overlapping measures, and aims to align risk assessments with intervention priorities and the responsibilities of the institutions involved.
