U.S. Treasury Department Press Release on FATF Evaluation Sparks Debate Over AML/CFT System Effectiveness
The U.S. Treasury Department issued a press release stating that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recognized the effectiveness of the U.S. Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Financing of Terrorism (CFT) system and advanced key illicit finance initiatives. However, this claim has been met with skepticism by some experts, as the full FATF mutual evaluation report for the U.S. has not yet been publicly released. The report, along with Mexico's review, was approved by the FATF plenary in October and is expected to be published in December. According to John Byrne, a financial crime expert, the FATF's actual reference to the U.S. and Mexico in the plenary outputs only stated that their mutual evaluation reports were adopted, a call to impose counter-terrorism on Iran was reiterated, a new report on scam centers was agreed upon, and global implementation of digital asset-related standards was to be accelerated. This discrepancy between the Treasury's headline and the detailed plenary outputs has led t...
