Law on preventing, combating money laundering, financing terrorism to be published in Official Journal of Moldova

Chisinau, 22 February /MOLDPRES/- The decree of promulgation and the law on preventing and combating money laundering and financing terrorism will be published in the Official Journal of Moldova on 23 February.

The document sees the creation of a service for preventing and combating money laundering, which will be an independent public authority.

Under the law, the service’s tasks will be to receive, record, analyze and process information on suspicious money laundering activities and transactions, money laundering and financing terrorism offenses. The information will be forwarded to the competent bodies. At the same time, the authority will notify the competent law enforcement authorities as soon as it sets suspicions of offense and will conduct financial investigations to identify the origin of suspicious goods. The new structure will be a legal entity of public law, will have a stamp and a treasury account.

The law enters into force on its publication, except article 35 which will come into force upon adoption of the law on the procedure for finding infringements of money laundering and terrorist financing and the application of fine, and the article 14 (20) which will enter into force on 1 January 2019. The law also stipulates that the government within 30 days will appoint the management and approve the structure and staff of the service upon the proposal of the director. The authority will work out and submit to the government an annual activity report by 30 April. All rights and obligations of the National Anticorruption Centre and the Service for Preventing and Combating Money Laundering within CNA in this area shall be passed to the newly created service.

(Reporter A. Zara, editor  M. Jantovan)