MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Paraguay tightens the screws on fight against money laundering and terrorism financing

In recent years non-profit organizations have been used for corruption purposes, Alcaraz explained

Paraguayan authorities announced this week that adjustments were being implemented to comply with the Latin American Financial Action Task Force (Gafilat) recommendations regarding the fight against money laundering, terrorist financing, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The measures are consistent with indicators and objectives gauged by Gafilat to shape up the institutions involved in the system targeting anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT), it was explained in Asunción. The strategy is focused on prevention, detection, investigation, repression, and confiscation of assets. These actions must be implemented by 2028.

After Gafilat's last evaluation, Paraguay was placed under an intensified monitoring process to follow the priority actions recommended in the report. Otherwise, Paraguay's international grades could slump.

Money Laundering Prevention Secretary (Seprelad) Liliana Alcaraz insisted Friday that the Gafilat recommendations were put aside by her predecessor Carlos Arregui. President Santiago “Peña issued a decree that updates and modifies the previous action plan of 2023,″ Alcaraz underlined.

Through its new plan involving other state agencies in addition to Seprelad, the Paraguayan Government will thus prioritize money laundering, which constitutes one of the threats and vulnerabilities to the Paraguayan financial system, Alcaraz pointed out. She also noted that in recent years non-profit organizations have been used for corruption purposes. Paraguay's Congress has approved in the past few days a new bill to make these entities transparent, as recommended by Gafilat.

”We have pending tasks and a process in which we must continue to improve,“ she added. ”We have to follow the priority actions, which are divided into 11 points. In some of them, we obtained a low grade, such as in the criminal prosecution of money laundering,“ the Paraguayan official also noted.

”Gafilat continues to monitor whether we are implementing the priority actions given by the agency. That is what the intensified follow-up consists of,” she went on.