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Despite AML Upgrades, FATF Places Lithuania Under Enhanced Monitoring

By Koos Couvée

Lithuanian authorities and financial institutions must target corruption, organized crime and the risks posed by their country’s sizeable cash economy to clamp down on money laundering and other forms of illicit finance, an intergovernmental group has warned. In a 221-page report, Moneyval, the Financial Action Task Force’s representative in Europe, praised Lithuania’s global cooperation and supervision of banks for anti-money laundering purposes by its central bank, the Bank of Lithuania, but questioned the country’s rules for filing suspicious transaction reports, or STRs, and efforts to pursue prosecutions against financial criminals. Lithuania’s primary money-laundering risks derive from local corruption, drug trafficking,...

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