Anti-Money Laundering Group to Assess Terrorist Funding

(FATF to hold plenary session in Hong Kong) (610)

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international group of
countries devoted to fighting money laundering, will meet January 30
to February 1 in Hong Kong to assess members' progress towards denying
terrorists and their supporters access to the international banking
system, the group announced in a January 22 news release.

FATF members include 29 governments plus the European Commission (EC)
and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Prompted by the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United
States, the group held an emergency session in Washington October
29-30 and adopted eight recommendations designed to break up terrorist
funding networks. These include criminalizing the financing of
terrorist organizations; freezing and confiscating terrorist assets;
reporting suspicious transactions linked to terrorism; strengthening
customer identification measures for wire transfers, and ensuring that
non-profit organizations cannot be misused to finance terrorism.

In addition to reviewing their anti-terrorism provisions, FATF members
will discuss and update the list of countries and territories that are
deficient in their anti-money laundering systems or are unwilling to
co-operate in anti-money laundering efforts.

The FATF will also release its annual survey of money laundering
trends and techniques.

Following is the text of the news release:

(begin text)

FATF Plenary to Meet 30 January-1 February 2002, Hong Kong Convention
and Exhibition Centre

22/01/2002 -- The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) will hold its
first Plenary in Hong Kong since adopting the Plan of Action to combat
terrorist financing. The Plenary will analyse the self-assessment of
all FATF members against the 8 Special Recommendations designed to
deny terrorists and their supporters access to the international
financial system and will discuss guidance for financial institutions
on the mechanisms and techniques used to finance terrorism.

The Plenary will also discuss and update the list of Non-Cooperative
Countries and Territories which have critical deficiencies in their
anti-money laundering systems or are unwilling to co-operate in
anti-money laundering efforts.

The annual Typologies report, the survey of money laundering trends
and techniques, will be available at the end of the meeting.
Journalists are welcome to attend the opening of the meeting and the
news conference.

The FATF President, Mrs. Clarie Lo, and the Chief Secretary for
Administration, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Mr. Donald
Tsang, will give an opening address to the Plenary at 9.30 a.m. on
Wednesday 30 January.

Mrs. Lo, Mr. Bill Bishop, Chairman of the Typologies meeting, New
Zealand Police National Crime Manager, and FATF Executive Secretary
Patrick Moulette will hold a closing news conference at 5.30 p.m.
(Hong Kong time, which is 10.30 a.m. Paris time) on Friday 1 February
in Room 702, Murray Building, Garden Road, Central. A live webcast of
the news conference will be carried on
http://www.info.gov.hk/eindex.htm

For further information, journalists should contact Helen Fisher, OECD
Media Relations, (tel. [33] 1 45 24 80 97) or Monica Chan, Chief
Information Officer, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Government (tel. [852] 2867 2759).

The FATF is an independent international body whose Secretariat is
housed at the OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development in Paris]. The twenty-nine member countries and
governments of the FATF are: Argentina; Australia; Austria; Belgium;
Brazil; Canada; Denmark; Finland; France; Germany; Greece; Hong Kong,
China; Iceland; Ireland; Italy; Japan; Luxembourg; Mexico; the Kingdom
of the Netherlands; New Zealand; Norway; Portugal; Singapore; Spain;
Sweden; Switzerland; Turkey; United Kingdom and the United States. Two
international organisations are also members of the FATF: the European
Commission and the Gulf Co-operation Council.

(end text)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)