(CMR) The Cayman Islands is among countries on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) “grey list”, which means it is under increased monitoring by the FATF to address strategic deficiencies in its regime to counter money laundering, and terrorist financing.
According to FATF, jurisdictions under increased monitoring actively work with the FATF to address shortfalls to prevent money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing.
“When the FATF places a jurisdiction under increased monitoring, it means the country has committed to resolve swiftly the identified strategic deficiencies within agreed timeframes and is subject to increased monitoring,” FATF explained on its website.
According to the website, the Cayman Islands “made a high-level political commitment” this month to work with the FATF and CFATF to strengthen the effectiveness of its strategies to address money laundering and to counter the financing of terrorism.
The government said it has satisfactorily completed 60 of 63 recommended actions to strengthen its AML/CFT (anti-money laundering, combatting the financing of terrorism and proliferation) regime.
FATF confirms that the country has made progress on several recommended actions to improve effectiveness.
These include amending its anti-money laundering national strategy by amending its Anti-Money Laundering (Amendment) regulation and Proceeds of Crime (Amendment) law.
The Cayman Islands has also conducted a financial terrorism risk assessment and some sectoral risk assessments. It has a designated Anti-Money Laundering/Countering Financial Terrorism regulator for Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions.
A new Bureau of Financial Investigations for investigating money laundering was also created.
Other action plans to be implemented by the Cayman Islands include applying sanctions that are effective, proportionate, and dissuasive and taking administrative penalties and enforcement actions against obliged entities to ensure that breaches are remediated effectively and promptly.
FATF said the Cayman Islands should also be imposing adequate and effective sanctions in cases where relevant parties (including legal persons) do not file accurate, adequate, and up-to-date beneficial ownership information.
The country should also show that it is prosecuting all types of money laundering in line with the jurisdiction’s risk profile and that prosecutions result in the application of dissuasive, effective, and effective, and proportionate sanctions.
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