Call for investigation
The National,Tuesday March 8th, 2016
By SHIRLEY MAULUDU
SOME countries in the Asia Pacific region have potential money laundering activities associated with Papua New Guinea, a senior government official says.
Department of Justice and Attorney-General Deputy Secretary Nichodemus Mosoro said further investigations would reveal information about these certain countries.
“There are a number of countries in the Asia Pacific region that have potential money laundering activities tied to Papua New Guinea,” Mosoro told The National yesterday.
“Further investigations will be able to reveal those countries properly. The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing (AML/CTF) National Coordinating Committee (NCC) was established by the national executive council in 2012 to deal with money laundering matters in the country.
Its role is to coordinate all actions towards detecting and deterring money laundering and terrorism financing in the country.
Parliament enacted five laws last year which paved way for enforcement of money laundering measures.
Mosoro said the newly established committee was aware of money laundering activities that was taking place in PNG. “NCC is aware of offences happening already, some of which are under investigation,” he said.
“Those individuals, groups and business shall be processed under the new laws.
“As the law is of retrospective application so far as the predicate offence of money laundering is, for example, being investigated or is in court
During announcement of the money laundering laws last week, Mosoro said money laundering was money obtained from illegal source including;
- Illegal logging,
- illegal fishing, and,
- human trafficking or people smuggling.
He said proceeds from those activities put into legitimate businesses was money laundering.
“For instance churches, and then they try to make it into good money. That’s where these laws are trying to address.”
Meanwhile, a financial analysis supervision unit responsible for collecting all information on suspicious transactions and reporting of all those transactions coming from different bodies including banks and financial institutions, has been established with Bank of PNG.