February 25, 2011 at 3:09 AM AHN News

http://gantdaily.com/2011/02/25/canada-plugs-money-laundering-loopholes/

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – The Financial Action Task Force in Canada said Thursday the multi-government group tasked with putting in place anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing practices in the country has plugged loopholes.

The task force held a closed-door meeting that ended Friday in preparation for a Paris meeting this week of international anti-money laundering authorities. Ottawa had previously been criticized for failing to meet several key anti-money laundering benchmarks, particularly to diligently check the background of customers.

The task force discovered that Canada did not comply with 11 of 49 recommendations in the basic framework for anti-money laundering efforts, which placed the country behind the U.S., Germany, and even India and Saudi Arabia. But Ottawa met seven recommendations and partially or compliant with most of the recommendations.

Among the measures Ottawa has put in place are tougher requirements to check on customer due diligence and stricter tracking of wire transfers to casinos and check-cashing firms, which are the usual conduits of money launderers.

Toronto is the site of the permanent headquarters of the secretariat of the Egmont Group. The group is an organization of 101 of the world’s financial intelligence units, including the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada. Ottawa contributed $5 million in 2006 spread over five years to help the secretariat get established.

However, experts said that even if Canada has plugged some of the more obvious loopholes, the lack of investigation, enforcement and prosecution still makes the country vulnerable to money laundering activities.