MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina targeting “60 to 70 billion dollars” outside the financial system

Sbatella: fine tuning in the control of financial and commercial operations

In Argentina there are an estimated 60 to 70 billion dollars “outside the financial system” according to the head of the Financial Information Unit, FIU, which is the country’s office in charge of preventing and combating money laundering.

“We come from a situation of extreme freedom and we are heading to a fine tuning in the control of commercial and financial operation so as to favour collective transparency and end with the shortcuts”, said Jose Sbatella head of the FIU.

Sbatella made the comments on Monday on the enforcement of new rules which increase financial control in real estate operations, cooperatives, medical insurance companies, all of then now responsible for forwarding greater information on their dealings and forced to report any financial or commercial operations suspect of money laundering.

The top Argentine officer said that the scheme is still lacking the implementation of the Commission for the Defence of Competition (anti monopoly and anti trust) which is to be organized based on information of corporate takeovers and assimilations.

In 2010 Argentina approved very strict legislation regarding money laundering, origin of funds and terrorism financing operations, following several years of continued pressure and verifications from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

FATF is an inter-governmental body whose purpose is the development and promotion of national and international policies to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. The FATF is therefore a 'policy-making body' that works to generate the necessary political will to bring about legislative and regulatory reforms in these areas.