On December 6, 2023, the 25th meeting of the Council of Heads of Financial Intelligence Units of the CIS Member States was held in Sanya, People's Republic of China.
The meeting was attended by delegations of financial intelligence units from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Joining as observers were India and Iran, the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (EAG), the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), the core organization and representatives of the Central Bank as well as private sector.
The heads of FIUs briefed the attendees on the current operational situation in the region.
The Council's experts discussed risks associated with the illicit use of cryptocurrencies, particularly for laundering proceeds from illicit drug trafficking, and the criteria for the "financial profile" of individuals financing terrorism using virtual assets.
Representatives from VTB, Otkritie, and Tinkoff banks demonstrated typologies of money laundering using bank acquiring that they had identified. Those present agreed to continue their interaction.
The meeting also included a report on the integration of the International Risk Assessment Center (IRAC) into the work of the FIUs of the CIS member states, including areas of cooperation with relevant international organizations in the field of AML/CFT and other multilateral formats.
The Council launched a youth movement, the primary goals of which are:
· Identifying new risks and threats posed by innovative financial instruments, whose main users are young people, and developing proposals for measures to minimize them;
· Improving financial literacy among youth;
· Developing the capacity of competent authority staff involved in national AML/CFT systems by enabling them to gain new experience and knowledge.
The Council is focusing on Islamic banking payment instruments. Plans are underway to create a register of organizations in the region that work with Islamic banking instruments for monitoring and identifying potential ML/TF risks.
Representatives of the International Training and Methodology Centre for Financial Monitoring (ITMCFM) informed the participants about the work of the core organization, including the launch of the "Sodruzhestvo" educational platform.
