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Slovakia Fails to Seize Criminal Assets, Prosecute Money Launderers

By Gabriel Vedrenne

Slovakia shows "serious shortcomings" in its mechanisms for seizing criminal assets, fails to make effective use of financial intelligence and has not pursued a sufficient number of cases against sophisticated money launderers, an intergovernmental group warned Thursday. In a 256-page report, Moneyval, the Financial Action Task Force's representative in Europe, praised Slovak officials for helping their international counterparts in financial-crime investigations but flagged several gaps in Slovakia's anti-money laundering rules as well as how they apply in practice. Slovakia rated "compliant" or "largely compliant" with only 24 of FATF's 40 technical recommendations against illicit finance, and "partially compliant"—the second-lowest score...

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