Financial Crime World

Title: MONEYVAL Urges Romania to Intensify Fight Against Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing

New Report Calls for Strengthened Efforts from Romanian Authorities

In a new report released on Tuesday, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Measures (MONEYVAL) urged Romanian authorities to strengthen their efforts in investigating and prosecuting money laundering and terrorist financing cases.

  • MONEYVAL releases report on Romania’s progress in anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing
  • Calls for Romania to prioritize investigations and prosecutions of ML and TF

Key Findings and Concerns

Compliance with FATF Standards

The report assesses Romania’s level of compliance with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards and highlights progress made since the last evaluation in 2014.

Areas for Improvement

Despite efforts to strengthen the legal and institutional framework, Romania faces several challenges to build an effective anti-money laundering/counter-terrorist financing (AML/CTF) system.

MONEYVAL reports:

  • Limited focus on ML and TF in investigations and prosecutions
  • Inconsistency in investigative and prosecutorial actions
  • Rarity of confiscation and seizure cases for proceeds and instrumentalities not related to domestic offenses

Recommendations for Romania

To address these concerns, the authorities need to prioritize ML and TF cases, improve investigative techniques, and allocate more resources to build a robust AML/CTF system.

National Strategy and Training Measures

  • Develop a national anti-terrorist financing strategy
  • Implement targeted financial sanctions without delay
  • Improve private sector and supervision compliance

Asset Recovery and Seizure

  • Increase the focus of financial investigators on tracing assets
  • Address the rarity of asset seizure and confiscation cases

Risk-Based Supervision and Institutional Challenges

  • Enhance risk-based supervision of financial institutions
  • Address concerns regarding supervision actions and under-resourcing

The report recognizes the country’s progress in preventing the misuse of legal persons and bank accounts. However, improvements are necessary to ensure the accuracy and up-to-date nature of the information held in the public registers.

Next Steps

Romania is expected to report back to MONEYVAL under the enhanced follow-up reporting process in May 2025.

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