In mid-September 2021, Malta submitted an action plan to the FATF, which aims to exit the regulatory body's gray list of countries and territories.
The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) is an intergovernmental organization that develops global standards in the field of combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism (AML / CFT), and also evaluates the compliance of national AML / CFT systems with these standards.
June this year, the FATF placed the jurisdiction on the “gray” list of countries that do not take sufficient measures to curb the flow of illicit funds.
The FATF decision comes amid years of international criticism of Malta's policies, including the sale of passports, and the lack of legal action against officials named in the Panama Papers who set up secret offshore companies.
Malta must strengthen its enforcement of three key anti-money laundering missions before it can be removed from the global financial crime watchdog gray list. Malta should take the following measures:
- Prove that the ownership information of the Malta-based companies is accurate and that the authorities take vigorous action when the ownership information of the company turns out to be inaccurate.
- Expand the use of financial intelligence by the State Department of Financial Intelligence Analysis to support criminal authorities dealing with tax evasion and money laundering.
- Strengthen the Maltese Financial Intelligence Unit's monitoring of major tax frauds to obtain information that will assist Maltese law enforcement agencies in identifying and investigating tax evasion cases.
