Egypt braces for money-laundering
Egypt, Economics, 8/25/2001

A Ministry of Economy Spokesman said Egypt would never be a hotbed for money laundering, affirming that Egyptian laws were carefully designed to combat this operation.

He added that a committee comprising representatives from the ministries of interior, justice and economy was currently designing an independent law on money laundering to be submitted to the cabinet and parliament.

Although FATF report criticised the Central Bank of Egypt for offering its employees scanty and unsystematic training on combating money laundering, the governor of the bank, Ismail Hassan, said the bank had introduced very tough measures to combat laundering.

He indicated that these regulations, dubbed as "Know Your Client," were sanctioned by the cabinet and economic experts, who considered them sufficient to thwart any money laundering operations.

Dirty money is generally the money generated from drug trafficking, arms dealings, bribery, political corruption, money forgery, white slavery, kickbacks, tax dodging and all sorts of other illegal activities. The people who commit these crimes normally transfer their money to countries which have weak money laundering mechanisms and channel them into legal activities to give them a veneer of legitimacy. This operation is carried out on a number of stages and is naturally conducted with the assistance of aides inside banks.

These collaborators make sure that the money is distributed into different account and handled in small amounts in order not to attract attention. This money is then returned to the original country after having obtained unchallenged legitimacy.

Previous Stories:
  Boosting resources of foreign currencies tops government's priorities   (8/24/2001)
  Better hurry selling loss-making state owned companies   (8/22/2001)
  More investments needed to provide more jobs   (8/22/2001)

Please add a link on your webiste pointing to ArabicNews.com and bookmark ArabicNews.com & subscribe to our daily email news bulletin.

Search