RIYADH, 15 May — The Council of the Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CSCCI) has directed all chambers across the country to step up their efforts in combating money laundering and commercial fraud. And in another move to bring to and end illegal money transactions, the CSCCI is closely working with a number of private business councils set up jointly by the Kingdom and European and South Asian states.
Abdul Rahman Al-Jeraisy, CSCCI’s vice chairman, said the CSCCI has intensified its campaign to educate businessmen on ways and means to combat money laundering on local, regional and international levels. This effort comes within the framework of the mandates of the CSCCI, which seeks to act as a liaison between the public and private sectors besides disseminating information on issues such as money laundering and crime.
“We are coordinating our efforts on the issue of money laundering with private bodies like Saudi-US Business Council, Saudi-German Council or Saudi-Japanese Council,” said Al-Jeraisy, adding that the CSCCI acts as a voice for the chambers and the private sector. This requires expressing unified opinions on economic and financial regulations, interpreting policies and conveying comprehensive information to the chambers and their hundreds of thousands of members across the Kingdom, he said.
The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) has announced several anti-money laundering measures. SAMA has already applied the provisions of a 1988 UN agreement, besides complying with the 40 recommendations of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), said Ali Al-Ghaith, SAMA’s director for banking inspection, insurance and financial leasing.
Addressing a seminar in Riyadh, Ghaith urged local banks to have a better knowledge of their clients and cautioned them about suspicious transactions. “Banks should be cautious about sales of precious stones involving payment of large amounts in cash,” Ghaith said.
Osama Kurdi, secretary-general of CSCCI, said that money-laundering operations were expanding worldwide as a result of global apathy toward the issue. In 1999, the total value of money laundered reached $28.5 billion, against $500 million in 1995, Kurdi said, quoting an IMF report.
Referring to the issue of money laundering from a Middle East perspective, Mike Adlem, a consultant with the UK-based Arthur Andersen, told the seminar that the expanded mandates given to international monitoring bodies will help to curb laundering across the world, including the Middle East. These new developments include an expanded mandate of the FATF, empowering the ‘Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’, the EU’s directive on money laundering, and several other measures taken by the US.
This campaign has been further strengthened by Interpol, which is working closely with other international organizations to check laundering and fraud, said Rajesh Ranjan, ICPO-Interpol’s crime intelligence officer.
He said that Interpol has launched two projects targeting money laundering and has also undertaken two comprehensive studies on alternative money remittance systems, he noted.
“In line with the current trend of ever increasing complexity of money laundering typologies, it is expected that the future scenario could include the use of new money remittance technologies such as Internet, cyber payment systems and that continued economic globalization would further add to this complexity,” said the Interpol official. He singled out Russia, which is already on the black list of the FATF with several other countries for violating its recommendations.
The seminar, which concluded today proving once again Saudi Arabia’s resolve to combat money laundering, was addressed by noted bankers including Nabeel A. Shoaib of the Saudi British Bank and John Garrett of Saudi Hollandi Bank.
