In its plan to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, India has set up a Joint Working Group with members from 18 intelligence, enforcement agencies, and several others, with the principal aim of assessing the country’s regulatory framework across sectors and inter-agency coordination to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. The decision was made during the last meeting of the Inter-ministerial coordination committee, coordinated by the revenue secretary.
Sources said that the Directorate General of GS Intelligence (DGGSTI) has been made an effective regulator for the Gems and Jewelry sectors. This action was facilitated by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental body responsible for setting, implementing and controlling standards to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, and failure to comply could lead to restrictions on such country financial system.
The Joint Working group will ensure that all the agencies involved will enhance the prosecution complaints and time-bound trial cases registered by them. The government previously introduced enhanced due diligence for Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) and urged all financial institutions to put an eye on political icons and their family and friends for corruption charges, and so far, the CBI had provided 14 cases involving 18 MPs/MLA’s in the last 5 years, there were also 82 financial crime cases against former and current MPs/MLAs. The CEIB is currently working on developing a comprehensive database (National Economic Offence Records), a portal designed for the provision of information to investigative agencies against corrupt government officials.
