In its annual report for 2022 the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing body MONEYVAL warns that the recovery of proceeds from crime across states remains insufficient and calls on governments to step up their efforts to strengthen their national frameworks for asset management and recovery.
In its monitoring work, MONEYVAL has found that successful confiscations of criminal assets are relatively rare compared with the estimates of the proceeds of crime. It therefore underlines the need not only to freeze but also to seize and confiscate criminal funds. To achieve this, enhancing the powers and resources of criminal asset recovery and management offices is crucial.
“States should not only improve their results in identifying and freezing criminal funds. There is also an urgent need for them to greatly improve their results in confiscating and managing criminal assets, adopt stricter sanctions and increase the number of convictions for serious money laundering offences”, said Elżbieta Frankow-Jaśkiewicz, Chair of MONEVYAL.
“Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has highlighted the link between authoritarian regimes, corrupt actors and illicit financial flows. The need to deny illicit actors access to the funds and resources used to facilitate harmful activities, including those that can undermine European security and stability, has become even more apparent. Governments should invest more in their national programmes to combat money laundering and terrorist financing and adopt stricter policies to prevent the laundering of proceeds associated with corrupt regimes”, she stressed.
In its annual report, MONEYVAL assesses compliance with international standards and developments in the legal and institutional frameworks to counter money laundering and the financing of terrorism in the 33 states and territories subject to its monitoring as of 31 December 2022. MONEYVAL expects to complete its 5th evaluation round and launch its 6th evaluation round in 2024.
