Global vigilance urged over politicians’ cash
March 1st, 2011
Reuters
LONDON – An international financial-crime watchdog was urged not to relax its stance on monitoring political officials in light of the desperate scramble to freeze the assets of recently deposed leaders in the Middle East and North Africa.
Global Witness, an anti-corruption advocacy group, said it was “worrying” that the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force, through a consultation exercise launched in October, was seeking to remove the need for banks to scrutinize family members and close associates of “politically exposed persons,” or PEPs. It added that recent events demonstrated that the monitoring regime needed to be tightened, not loosened.