Asia Pacific Group reaches Pakistan to review anti-terror financing steps

ISLAMABAD (92 News) – A delegation of the Asia Pacific Group has reached Pakistan to review steps to block financial assistance of terrorism. The delegation will review the Pakistani steps to check money laundering. The talks starting from today will continue till March 28. The officers of NACTA, SECP, the State Bank of Pakistan, Finance, Interior and Foreign ministries will participate in the talks. The delegation will be briefed about the steps taken to check money laundering used for terrorist organizations. The discussion will also be held to remove Pakistan from the grey list. Pakistan will present also a report on the implementation of the National Action Plan. It will also exchange views about the steps implemented to achieve the targets of the National Action Plan. India wanted to link the Pulwama incident to money laundering and terrorism funding from Pakistan. However, India could not provide any proof to the FATF in this regard. During the talks, Pakistan will also request to expel India from the FATF. Pakistan has been on and off the grey list in the past. The last time we were removed from the grey list was in February 2015. If the ongoing consultations between the FATF and the Pakistani government are successful, we will be taken off the grey list and placed on the white list. Pakistan is among 83 countries with a risk score of 5.0 or above. These are countries that could be loosely classified as having a significant risk of money laundering and terrorist financing, according to the Basel AML Report 2018, an independent annual ranking that assesses the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing in 129 countries. Recently, Pakistan froze the accounts and seized the assets linked to organisations banned by the United Nations Security Council.