https://despardes.com/fatf-monster-pakistan-money-laundering/
The 229-page October 2019 FATF recommendations is a gigantic graphic indictment of the failed Pakistan system, its broken laws, lack of commitment and coordination and was largely divided into two parts – Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing.
Terrorism financing is being dealt with more effectively by the security establishment. But the money laundering part of MER is a work in progress in the civilian domain and has far reaching implications and consequences, for the state, the political government, the political system and the nation.
In five years (2013-2018) the total number of money laundering cases investigated by various agencies was 2,420, of which 354 were prosecuted and only ONE case of NAB resulted in a conviction: it mentions the conviction of Nawaz Sharif as a case example. “Corruption is endemic across Pakistan’s economy,” the report observes.
Out of all the 40 recommendations, only one was judged as “Compliant” and ironically it was about “Financial Institutions Secrecy Laws”. So Pakistan was judged good at keeping these matters under wraps.
The Assets Recovery Unit (ARU) headed by Barrister Shahzad Akbar was created as a FATF condition.
A very senior (just-retired) top bureaucrat of Pakistan, when asked to see the report and comment on it said: “I was about to get a heart attack. It’s such a hair-raising script. Why was this not known to us before?”
The FATF Report found each and every fault, crack, cleavage and hole in the country’s legal, administrative, judicial, security and political infra-structure.
The Report categorically states that corruption, drug trafficking, fraud, tax evasion, smuggling, human trafficking and organized crime are major predicate offenses to money laundering and areas of high risk.
The country’s public and private sectors have a low level of understanding of money laundering (ML) and terror financing (TF) risks. This, the findings said, is also apparent across Law enforcement agencies (LEAs) due to the lack of national, coordinated strategic leadership….
FATF has therefore left zero room for Pakistan’s political government, its Army or even the top judges, to be even mildly soft or