As agreed during the October 2022 plenary, experts from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) arrive this Monday, January 16 in Morocco, for a three-day working visit.
In October 2022, the FATF welcomed Morocco’s efforts in its fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. Palpable efforts that the Kingdom has undertaken to get out of the FATF gray list, where there are 23 other countries.
Expected for months, the visit of FATF experts scheduled from Monday to Morocco, and which should last until January 18, therefore aims to “ learn about the most important achievements of the Kingdom in terms of implementing the axes of the action plan agreed with the group in the field, with a view to exiting the reinforced monitoring process as soon as possible “, confided the president of the National Financial Intelligence Authority (ANRF), Jawhar Nfissi.
Received Friday in Rabat by the head of government Aziz Akhannouch, the president of the ANRF presented him the annual report of the Authority for the year 2021, in accordance with the provisions of law °05-43 relating to the fight against money laundering, which reviews the main achievements relating to the upgrading of the national system for combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism, its harmonization with international standards and good practices as well as the acceleration of the pace of coordination at the national level between law enforcement authorities and authorities supervising and monitoring subject persons and the private sector.
The report submitted to the Chief Executive thus highlights the growing development of FSNA’s activity indicators during 2021, whether in terms of suspicious transaction reports submitted, transmissions to the competent judicial authorities or even national and international requests for information.
This field visit should make it possible to take stock of the progress of the implementation of the lines of work agreed by Morocco and the Gafi in February 2021. These include actions on the legislative and regulations, as well as in matters of awareness and monitoring, adopted by the various national institutions concerned.
In October 2021, the ANRF had specified in a press release ” that, following the example of the efforts made by the various national authorities, institutions and subject persons during the past period, and for the success of this visit, the national authorities and institutions will continue to mobilize and commit, with a total commitment and responsibility, in this national project to ensure that the Kingdom of Morocco leaves the list of reinforced monitoring of the FATF“.
Morocco, which is subject to enhanced surveillance, has made enormous efforts in recent years to be able to leave this list relating to money laundering and the financing of terrorism. That said, the Kingdom, like other countries, is actively working with the FATF to fill the strategic gaps in its anti-money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing regime.
When the FATF places a jurisdiction under heightened scrutiny, it signifies that the country is committed to promptly addressing identified strategic deficiencies within agreed timelines and is subject to heightened scrutiny. This list is often referred to externally as “gray list“.