Financial Crime World

Executive Summary: Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Measures in the Republic of Moldova

The following report highlights several key areas where improvements are necessary to strengthen the Republic of Moldova’s defenses against money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF).

Risk Assessment

  • Supervisors have an adequate understanding of ML risks for most sectors, but there are concerns regarding the understanding of ML/FT risks related to legal entities (LEs).
  • A comprehensive analysis of ML/FT risks related to LEs is necessary.

Supervision of DNFBPs

  • The supervisory framework for Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions (DNFBPs) is inadequate.
  • Supervision of their degree of compliance with Anti-Money Laundering/COUNTER-Terrorist Financing (AML/CFT) obligations is only recently developed.
  • The National Regulatory Authority (NRA) does not provide a comprehensive analysis of ML/FT risks related to LEs.
  • Authorities mostly rely on banks to access beneficial ownership (BO) information of LEs.

International Cooperation

  • The legal framework for international cooperation is well-developed, but there are moderate shortcomings regarding mutual legal assistance (MLA) on freezing and confiscation.

Priority Actions

Based on these findings, the report recommends several priority actions:

  1. Ensure that reporting entities (REs) prioritize the assessment of their business-specific ML/FT threats and vulnerabilities.
  2. Implement a suspicion-based transaction reporting system as a matter of priority.
  3. Challenge courts with more ML cases relying on inferences from available evidence.
  4. Provide Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) with sufficient resources and capacities to make effective use of financial intelligence.
  5. Consistently employ the legislative framework to raise the effectiveness of confiscation of proceeds.

Overall, while progress has been made in addressing AML/CFT risks in Moldova, there are still areas where improvements are needed to strengthen the country’s defenses against money laundering and terrorist financing.