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Gary Raynaldo    DIPLOMATIC TIMES

Immediately after the European Union  revealed its anti-money laundering black list, it drew the fury of the United States.  The U.S. Treasury lashed out at the EU for having the  audacity to include U.S. territories on a list of dirty money red zones around the world. Under the February 13, 2019 proposal by the  European Commission, banks and other financial institutions would be required to apply increased due diligence checks on operations involving customers from 23 “high-risk third countries,” including American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia and Panama, to more efficiently identify  suspicious money flows.  After the  strong objection by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, EU states then  followed suit and blocked the  European Commission’s unprecedented plan to root out  dirty money.   Fierce backlash by the EU bloc’s 28 countries strangled the effort in the crib to name some two dozen jurisdictions alleged to be sources of money-laundering risks.

“The U.S. Department of the Treasury has significant concerns about the substance of the list and the flawed process by which it was developed.  Beyond our concerns with the listing methodology, the Treasury Department rejects the inclusion of American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands on the list.  The commitments and actions of the United States in implementing the FATF standards extend to all U.S. territories.  The same AML/CFT legal framework that applies to the continental United States also generally applies to U.S. territories.  Moreover, the Treasury Department was not provided any meaningful opportunity to discuss with the European Commission its basis for including the listed U.S. territories.”     

U.S. Department Of The Treasury   statement Feb. 13, 2019. 

The Treasury Department further stated that American banks should ignore any suggestions from the European Commission to put transactions under greater scrutiny based on its newly-adopted list.

“…the Commission’s process did not include a sufficiently in-depth review necessary to conduct an assessment related to such a serious and consequential issue. As a result, the European Commission produced a list that diverges from the FATF list without reasonable support”,    the statement added.

According to  the European Commission,  the four United States territories were added to the blacklist because they “are attractive for tax crimes and exposed to a higher threat of money laundering linked to tax crime.”

Credit: Wikipedia /  The European Commission is the EU’s politically independent executive arm based in Brussels.

 Věra Jourová, Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality said:

“We have established the strongest anti-money laundering standards in the world, but we have to make sure that dirty money from other countries does not find its way to our financial system. Dirty money is the lifeblood of organised crime and terrorism. I invite the countries listed to remedy their deficiencies swiftly. The Commission stands ready to work closely with them to address these issues in our mutual interest. ”  

European financial institutions such as Danske Bank A/S, Deutsche Bank AG and Swedbank AB, have been implicated in money-laundering allegations during  the past years. 

The European Commission ‘s 23  ‘Dirty Money’ Jurisdictions Targeted  in  Anti-Money Laundering Plan:

(1)            Afghanistan

(2)            American Samoa

(3)            The Bahamas

(4)            Botswana

(5)            Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

(6)            Ethiopia

(7)            Ghana

(8)            Guam

(9)            Iran

(10)          Iraq

(11)          Libya

(12)          Nigeria

(13)          Pakistan

(14)          Panama

(15)          Puerto Rico

(16)          Samoa

(17)          Saudi Arabia

(18)          Sri Lanka

(19)          Syria

(20)          Trinidad and Tobago

(21)          Tunisia

(22)          US Virgin Islands

(23)          Yemen

 SOURCE:   European  Commission