Pakistan Toils to Exit FATF Grey List in June Review

Pakistan is toiling to get an exit from Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list in its review due in June.

News360 learned that Pakistan has completed 24 of 27 targets set by the money laundering watchdog while it has made significant progress on the remaining three as well.

Currently, the preparation of STR (Suspected Transaction Report) is underway.

Through it, all registered real estate agents and property dealers across the country would be bound to report all suspicious transactions to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

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The revenue body has also issued a special 4-page questionnaire enlisting 68 questions for this purpose.

It will be binding on the property dealers to provide details of customers carrying out dubious or suspicious transactions along with details of those purchasing properties on cash.

The real estate agents will provide national identity card (NIC) number, amount of investment, and other related details of such people.

In case of non-compliance, the property dealers would face action from FBR.

Further, the government has decided to hire officers from relevant departments as well as private local and foreign agencies and legal experts to handle money laundering cases.

According to proposed rules, the government will register cases on the use of remittances sent by Pakistanis in financing malicious activities.

A central asset recovery office will be set up in such cases in which officers of Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF), Customs, FBR, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) will be deployed.

A dedicated staff will be appointed for monitoring confiscated items.

The non-implementation of FATF guidelines can place Pakistan in a critical position and only strict adherence to watchdog’s guidelines seems to be the last resort to exit grey list.