UAE’s strong efforts to tackle money laundering bring it out of FATF’s ‘grey list’

The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force oversees the fight against money laundering. It designs international standards to help governments across the globe tackle illicit financing for crimes ranging from terrorism to drug trafficking.

The international body has removed the UAE from its “grey list”, a couple of years after it identified weaknesses in the Gulf state’s ability to address financial crime. Barbados, Gibraltar and Uganda have also been removed from the list, and Kenya and Namibia placed on it.

FATF said the countries removed from the grey list had taken “significant steps” to bolster their financial crime fighting systems. They have “demonstrated the necessary political will to sustain and continue these changes,” said FATF President Raja Kumar.

Measures taken by UAE to tackle financial crimes

UAE’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed highlighted his country’s commitment to “consolidate its unwavering approach and position within the world’s financial system” by following all relevant international laws and conventions.

Getting off the grey list “restores the global business community’s trust in the UAE to have a robust framework to fight financial crimes,” according to Bhavin Shah, a Dubai-based expert in tackling financial crime and managing director of Secretariat Advisors.

Measures taken by the UAE to get off the list include beefing up legislation and strengthening its Executive Office of Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terror Financing to address illicit money, according to the Financial Times.

In addition, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nation has also extradited many alleged financial criminals, put in efforts to improve a national registry of companies, and introduced an online system for reporting suspicious activities.

2 years since the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Being on FATF’s grey list does not impose restrictions on a country. It means the international body believes the country has “strategic deficiencies” in their anti-financial crime processes – but that the state has agreed to work with the organisation to plug its gaps.

But anti-corruption campaigners argue that the move has come too soon for the Emirates and that the international community should keep pressuring the Gulf state to continue its reforms, the Financial Times further reported.

Berlin-headquartered Transparency International said the UAE has more to prove, highlighting allegations that multiple Russian politicians hit with sanctions over Moscow’s two-year-long invasion of Ukraine still owned properties in Dubai.