Liberia

New Documents

The Financial Intelligence Unit of Liberia issued a press release urging anti-money laundering compliance in the insurance sector and other areas.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published a supplemental report to its Phase 1 peer review concerning Liberia’s adherence to the international standard for tax transparency and the automatic exchange of tax information.

Enforcement Actions

The Financial Intelligence Unit of Liberia has imposed a fine of LD$500,000 on the Sinkor Monrovia, Liberia-based financial institution for failing to meet requirements under the regulation on Suspicious Transaction Reporting for Financial Institutions that are operating in the country.

The Financial Intelligence Unit of Liberia penalized Afriland Bank $250,000 LRD for violations related to currency transaction reporting procedures.


Important Facts

  • The U.S. State Department classifies Liberia as a major money laundering country. Generally, financial institutions in the country have limited capacity to detect money laundering and their financial controls remain weak. In addition, the Central Bank of Liberia does not robustly enforce anti-money laundering requirements and Liberia's financial intelligence unit is underfunded and lacks the technical capacity to collect, analyze, and disseminate financial intelligence. These factors are compounded by Liberia’s cash-based economy and weak border controls, which facilitate the smuggling of illicit goods through the country's porous borders. Although the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak resulted in limited land border crossings, the smuggling of goods remained an issue. Corruption is endemic, increasing the jurisdiction’s vulnerability to illicit crimes. Money exchange operations are poorly controlled, and there are various unlicensed foreign exchange sites and unregulated entities whose opaque activities raise concern. The jurisdiction’s artisanal diamond and gold mines are largely unregulated and difficult to monitor, and there is little oversight over the two casinos operating in the nation. In 2020, the Central Bank of Libera adopted robust monitoring and surveillance procedures to ensure that financial institutions adhered to AML/CTF laws; however, money laundering investigations were hampered by limited capacity, political interference, corruption, weak judicial institutions, among other issues.
Source: 2021 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR)

Rankings

FATF i

Technical Effectiveness
Compliant : 0 High :
Largely Compliant : 0 Substantial :
Partially Compliant : 21 Moderate :
Non-Compliant : 28 Low :

BASEL i

Rank : 29/141
Score : 6.25/10

TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL i

Rank : 137/179
Score : 28/100

Tax Justice Network i

Rank : 111/133
Score : 78/100