The Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering body MONEYVAL has urged the Georgian authorities to strengthen the practical application of their measures to combat money laundering and financing of terrorism. In a new report it calls for making more efforts to use financial intelligence to detect and investigate money laundering, as well as for strengthening the supervision and regulation focusing on the high-risk non-financial sectors, especially casinos. The report assesses the effectiveness of Georgia’s system for countering money laundering and financing of terrorism system and its level of compliance with Recommendations issued in 2012 by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
The report acknowledges that Georgia displays a fair understanding of many of its money laundering and terrorism financing risks. Shortcomings exist regarding identification, in-depth analysis and understanding of some threats, vulnerabilities and risks. Notably, the understanding of risks needs to be developed further in the following areas: use of cash in the economy; the real estate sector; trade-based money laundering and terrorism financing (including in free industrial zones of Georgia); the activities of legal persons; and the use of non-profit organisations (NPOs).
