Cambodia is a target for money laundering
Money laundering happens in almost every country in the world, and a single scheme typically involves transferring money through several countries in order to obscure its origins. In practice, criminals are trying to disguise the origin of money obtained through illegal activities so it looks like it was obtained from legal sources. The most money laundering methods of criminals who need to launder money are drug traffickers, embezzlers, corrupt politicians, and public officials, mobster, terrorists and con artist.
So, Cambodia will be able to become more vulnerable to money laundering because Cambodia is lax of enforcement of existing regulations, and remain ill-equipped to deal with the problem. The potential for money-laundering through casinos, drug trafficking and the large-scale real estate developments is concerned.
The London-based watchdog International Bar Association (IBA), a 60-year-old organization of more than 30,000 lawyers and 195 bar associations, has said in report that Cambodia needs to improve its laws to prevent money laundering.
Money laundering has a huge negative impact in economics as well as in society. If the money laundering has been done through the banking system, it will do destroy function of banking and financial system, and especially it leads to a loss of public confidence. Therefore, banking sector needs better to oversight and enforcement of regulations and protect the banking and financial system from the money launders and financial terrorists.
Due to the pressure from the United States to address terrorism funding, Cambodia opened the Financial Intelligence Office, which is responsible for tracking suspicious activities in the banking sector. The office is under empowerment of the Law on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism passed by the National Assembly in 2007.
After passing the law, Cambodian government hopes that the legislation will boost investors’ confidence in doing business in Cambodia and counter criticism that the country is a place for illegal financial activities.
“The legislation is an important legal instrument and foundation for thwarting and cracking down on any attempts of money laundering and terrorist financing in Cambodia,†said Chea Chanto, central bank governor, quoted by the Phnom Penh Post.
Phan Ho, the Financial Intelligence Office’s secretary general, was quoted by the Phnom Penh Post as saying as saying that the Kingdom’s largely unregulated gaming sector, which brings in hundreds of millions of dollars each year, is especially concerning. He added that people thinks Cambodia is an easy place to launder money because the government and banks here have been slower to address the problem.
Tal Nay Im, director general of the National Bank of Cambodia, was quoted by VOA as saying that “we have taken strong actions to strengthen the Cambodian banking law to fight against money laundering and terrorism funding.†She added that “each bank in Cambodia must respect the law, and if any bank is involved in money laundering or terrorism funding, it will face defamation and lose cooperation from international banks.â€
Related posts:
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment