The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international financial crime watchdog, said it had added EU member state Croatia to its so-called “grey list” of countries, or those under “increased monitoring”.
The move announced Friday makes Croatia the only EU country on the list, which also includes the United Arab Emirates, Panama and Mali, and comes in response to deficiencies in the country’s prevention of money laundering and “terrorism financing”.
“When the FATF places a jurisdiction under increased monitoring, it means the country has committed to implement an Action Plan to resolve swiftly the identified strategic deficiencies within agreed timeframes,” the watchdog said in a statement on its website.
“New jurisdictions subject to increased monitoring are Cameroon, Croatia and Vietnam.”
The Paris-based FATF, which this week held one of its regular plenary meetings, is an inter-governmental organisation that underpins the fight against money laundering and “terrorism financing” by setting global standards and checking if countries respect them.
T Raja Kumar, the organisation’s chairman, told journalists Croatia had committed to an action plan to improve its compliance and urged the country to implement this plan “as soon as possible”.
Croatia’s action plan, among other things, includes “assessing risks associated with the misuse of legal persons and legal arrangements and the use of cash in the real estate sector”, the watchdog said in a statement.
The body on Friday reiterated in the statement that “all jurisdictions should be vigilant to current and emerging risks from the circumvention of measures taken against the Russian Federation in order to protect the international financial system”.
The FATF had suspended Russia’s membership in February.
The body on Friday also said that following the June meeting, no current member of the grey list had been removed.
