The Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF):
The Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) plenary session ended its five-day deliberation and put out the list of countries that it has identified to have “strategic deficiencies”.
- The Paris based UN watchdog that looks after issues like terrorism financing, money laundering and the flow of black money at the global level has retained Pakistan in the list of countries with “strategic deficiencies”.
- The list is generally referred to as the “grey list”.
- The grey listing by FATF shows that the issue of money laundering and consequent funding of illicit activities is fast spreading to other countries as well. The latest grey list includes countries like the Philippines, Malta, South Sudan and Haiti.
- The 39 member grouping works in close coordination with the UN Security Council which evaluates countries for commitment to anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT).
- The FATF has noted that Pakistan has made progress in addressing several of the issues that the watchdog has been raising in its plenary sessions. However, Pakistan failed to implement the most crucial of the 27 action items: to act against terror masterminds facing UN sanctions.
- The latest move from FATF is expected to keep Pakistan under pressure to come clean on its links with the UN-designated terror masterminds Hafiz Saeed, the chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Masood Azhar, chief of Jaish-e-Mohammad. Both LeT and JeM are a threat to India as well as to Afghanistan.
