Friday, August 12, 2011

Money Laundering


The Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (also known as the APG or APGML) is the FATF-style regional body for the Asia/Pacific region. It is an autonomous international organisation founded in 1997 in Bangkok, Thailand. The APG consists of 41 member jurisdictions and a number of observer jurisdictions and international and regional observer organisations. Membership in the APG is not open to individual persons. It is available only for jurisdictions with a presence in the Asia/Pacific region. Membership does not however imply or suggest sovereignty in status.
The APG has two Co-Chairs - one permanent and one two-year term rotating Co-Chair. The permanent Co-Chair is Australia (held by Commissioner Tony Negus, the Commissioner ofAustralian Federal Police) and the current rotating Co-Chair is India (held by Shri Jose Cyriac, the Additional Secretary to the Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue). The past rotating Co-Chair is Director Ong Hian Sun of Singapore (from 2008 to 2010).
The APG Secretariat is located Sydney, Australia. The Executive Secretary is Dr Gordon Hook, a lawyer who has practiced private and public law in both Canada and New Zealand.
Jurisdictions that join the APG commit to implement the international standards to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism, in particular the Forty Recommendations on Money Laundering and the Nine Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). These standards are referred to as the international standards for Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT).

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[edit]Role

The APG has a number of roles as stated in its strategic plan including:
  • assessing APG members' compliance with the international AML/CFT standards through a programme of mutual evaluations;
  • supporting implementation of the international AML/CFT standards, including coordinating multi-lateral and bi-lateral technical assistance and training with donor countries and agencies;
  • conducting research and analysis into money laundering and terrorist financing trends and methods; and
  • participating in, and co-operating with, the international AML/CFT network and contributing to global policy development of the standards through associate membership in the FATF.
The APG conducts mutual evaluations of its members to determine whether they comply, or to what extent they comply, with their obligations to implement the global anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing standards. Some of these reports are conducted jointly with other AML/CFT bodies such as the FATF, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Offshore Group of Banking Supervisors. The final reports are considered in the APG plenary at the annual meeting and upon completion of that examination are published on the APG website in accordance with internal policy.
The APG also has a robust technical assistance and training function in the region. The APG was the first FATF-Style Regional Body to have formal institutionalised processes for technical assistance and training coordination relating to AML/CFT issues. Each year a number of missions are conducted in the region to assess technical and training needs of various jurisdictions after which the Secretariat coordinates the delivery of assistance from multi-lateral and bi-lateral donors. The APG recently developed a "Strategic Implementation Planning Framework" which assists countries to prioritize and implement the complex recommendations made in APG mutual evaluation reports. The framework was developed jointly with the World Bank.
The APG has a Typologies Working Group which examines trends in money laundering and terrorist financing in the Asia-Pacific region. The reports of this Working Group are published on the APG website and provide sanitised case studies from APG members which in turn assist policy makers and law enforcement agencies in understanding how to target resources to prevent these crimes both at the domestic and the international level. Some of the reports published by the APG include money laundering trends in the gambling and casino sector; the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing through alternative remittance systems and underground banking; and trade-based money laundering.
The APG is also an Associate Member of the Financial Action Task Force which permits individual APG members to attend FATF meetings as APG delegates and intervene on policy and operational issues. The APG also conducts joint meetings with the FATF and other FATF-style bodies around the world.

[edit]APG Members

Members are committed to implementing and enforcing the global AML/CFT standards established by the FATF. Effective July 2011, the 41 members of the APG are:
  • Afghanistan
  • Australia
  • Bangladesh
  • Bhutan, Kingdom of
  • Brunei Darussalam
  • Cambodia
  • Canada
  • China, People's Republic of
  • Cook Islands
  • East Timor
  • Fiji Islands
  • Hong Kong, China
  • India
  • Indonesia
  • Japan
  • Korea, Republic of
  • Lao PDR
  • Macau, China
  • Malaysia
  • Maldives
  • Marshall Islands
  • Mongolia
  • Myanmar
  • Nauru
  • Nepal
  • New Zealand
  • Niue
  • Pakistan
  • Palau
  • Papua New Guinea
  • Philippines
  • Samoa
  • Singapore
  • Solomon Islands
  • Sri Lanka
  • Chinese Taipei
  • Thailand
  • Tonga
  • United States of America
  • Vanuatu
  • Vietnam
Of these, 10 are also members of the FATF: Australia; Canada; India; People's Republic of China; Hong Kong, China; Japan; the Republic of Korea; New Zealand; Singapore; and the United States of America.
There are now very few jurisdictions in the Asia-Pacific region which do not participate with the APG as members or observers (including North Korea and some independent jurisdictions in the Pacific region such as Tuvalu, Kiribati and Northern Marianas Islands). French Polynesia and New Caledonia as well as the Wallis and Futuna Islands are dependencies of France and included within the French AML/CFT system.

[edit]APG Observers

APG observers include potential members of the APG and jurisdictions and organisations that cooperate with the APG to support regional efforts to implement the international standards for AML/CFT.
The following jurisdictions are observers in the APG:
  • France
  • Germany
  • United Kingdom
  • Russian Federation
  • Federated States of Micronesia
The following international and regional organisations are observers in the APG:

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