On the Council

Considering international character and current scale of legalization (laundering) of criminal proceeds and terrorist financing, placing great emphasis on the development of cooperation and striving for coordination of interaction in combating money laundering and terrorist financing, Heads of the CIS countries signed the Agreement on Establishment of the Council of Heads of Financial Intelligence Units of the CIS Member States (hereinafter referred to as the Council, CIS CHFIU) on December 5, 2012 in Ashkhabad (Turkmenistan).

The strategic goal of establishing the Council is to ensure the protection of citizens, society and CIS member states from ML/TF threats by financial intelligence units.

The main activities of the Council are:

• organization of collaboration between financial intelligence units and other concerned bodies of the CIS member states, as well as the CIS bodies, whose activities include AML/CFT;
• identification of priority areas of cooperation and adoption of joint effective measures;
• assistance in the development of unified approaches for the purpose of convergence and harmonization of the national legislation of the CIS member states;
• developing proposals on improving the legal framework for cooperation of the CIS member states;
• ensuring implementation of the documents adopted within the CIS.

The main functions of the Council are:

• preparing proposals for the development of targeted programs, as well as proposals for priority areas of cooperation of the CIS member states in the AML/CFT sphere;
• assistance in implementation of the FATF Recommendations by the CIS member states;
• facilitating information sharing between financial intelligence units;
• preparing proposals for establishing unified information sharing standards between financial intelligence units;
• developing, jointly with interested CIS member states, recommendations on identifying and combating money laundering and terrorist financing forms and methods;
• cooperation with interested CIS member states, as well as with working (executive) bodies of international organizations, FATF and FATF-style regional bodies on the matters of its authority;
• organization and coordination of implementation of the documents adopted within the CIS on competences of the Council and its own decisions;
• analysis of trends (typologies) in the area of legalization (laundering) of criminal proceeds and terrorist financing;
• assistance in experience sharing between financial intelligence units of CIS member states, including provision of methodological assistance;
• consideration of issues related to organizing personnel professional training for financial intelligence units of CIS member states and establishment of basic organizations of CIS member states for training and retraining of staff;
• consideration of issues related to joint scientific and research projects, as well as development projects on problems of mutual interest;
• implementation of other functions within the Council s authority.

The main form of the CIS CHFIU work is meetings (open and closed), which are held as needed, but at least once a year.

Representatives of international organizations and financial intelligence units, as well as representatives of interested states that are not parties to the Agreement, may participate in the Council meetings with the prior consent of all its members.

Representatives of international organizations and financial intelligence units of states that are not parties to the Agreement, who have submitted an official request to the Secretariat, may participate in the Council meetings as observers.

The decision to grant observer status is made by the Council members at the meeting.

The participants of the Council meetings, which granted the observer status of the Council, have the right to attend the meetings, make proposals concerning the working plan of the Council, the agenda of its meetings, participate in the discussion and submit proposals on the draft documents being developed, receive documents adopted by the Council, except for materials of closed Council meetings, information classified as state, official or other secrets protected by the national legislation.

India is currently an observer of the Council.

In accordance with the Decision of the CIS Heads of State Council of October 30, 2015, the Autonomous Non-Profit Organization International Training and Methodology Centre for Financial Monitoring (ITMCFM, Moscow) is the basic AML/CFT educational organization of the CIS member states.

The objectives of the basic organization are education, AML/CFT personnel training, retraining and professional development, scientific research on priority areas, development of AML/CFT education, science and practice.