AML / CFT: Russia releases list of asset targets
It might seem ridiculous to those of us who operate in a (relatively) free and open society but in many parts of the world, governments keep everything secret, even when it is counter-productive to do so. And so, Russia's FIU, the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, has kept a tight lid on those that, in other countries, would appear on a watch list. But things are changing.
Yesterday, a list of some 2,000 names was published. Of course, it is mostly made up of international targets under e.g. UN sanctions lists especially the 1267 list.
But it also includes domestic targets in both terrorism and non-terrorism related allegations.
Some of the targets are dead but their assets are still sought.
And while governments around the world make sure that banks are aware of the need to identify assets and notify the authorities of them, that has been made harder in Russia by the lack of information flow.
It's not surprising: it often appears as if,every time a Russian crime figure comes under suspicion, and the authorities admit an investigation is under way, someone gets dead.
It happened to the former deputy head of the Central Bank when he was part of the supervisory panel for the FIU and banking supervision: when a bank connected to a gangster was closed for failures in money laundering controls, he was killed.
And so, there is a kind of self-preservation purpose in keeping word of pending investigations quiet.
But if the governments want the money frozen, they have to tell those who have their hands on the money to hold onto it.
And that's where the whole question of making information available is centred.
For foreign banks who might want to help, there's one teeny, tiny problem: the list is in Russian.
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