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There are gaps in the laws of Azerbaijan aimed at combating money laundering and terrorist financing. The Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism (MONEYVAL) has today made public an annual report.

APA’s Europe bureau reports that the report contains a large evaluation analysis on money laundering and financing of terrorism in Europe. The organization noted the achievement of the recent considerable progresses in the member states, highly assessed the adoption of new draft laws and implementation of legal reforms towards anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism. MONEYVAL also notes its main recommendations in the report.

The organization calls on judicial, police and security service systems to combat effectively, increase punitive measures such as the confiscation of property against money laundering and create deterrent effect against these activities. According to the report, money laundering by one third of organized criminal networks is not solved and the committers remain unpunished.

According to this assessment, there are some deficiencies in the six countries - Azerbaijan, Croatia, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Ukraine. The President of the organization called on the delegations of the abovementioned countries to eliminate these gaps. Minor issues of both deficiencies which have not been tackled by the amendments will be addressed during the on-site visit to Azerbaijan taking place in 2014.

Addressing the presentation of the annual report, Executive Secretary to MONEYVAL John Ringguth stated that they cooperated with Azerbaijan for several years: “We will discuss the problems regarding Azerbaijan during our visit to the country next year.
Moreover, we will make another evaluation report on Azerbaijan next year.”

The report says that Armenia has continued to work on the basis of a specific action plan to address the deficiencies identified and the recommendations formulated in the mutual evaluation report. As a result, a revised package of 15 draft laws, including revisions of the AML/CFT Act and the Criminal Code, has been presented to the National Assembly for adoption. It also says that there have been positive steps on the implementation of the criminalisation of money laundering and case law has gradually developed in Armenia.