TIRANA, June 28 – Financial institutions supervised by Albania’s central bank display medium to high risk on money laundering and terrorism financing, a report assessing the exposure of commercial banks and non-bank financial institutions has shown.
Half of the 60 surveyed operators were described as posing medium-level risk and the remaining half at high risk because of failing to report to the Bank of Albania.
Among the 31 medium-level risk operators, there were 12 out of 16 commercial banks operating in Albania, 13 out of 31 non-bank financial institutions and 6 out of 13 savings and loan associations.
In another integrated risk assessment focused on the number and value of incoming and outgoing money transfers on 23 operators, including all 16 commercial banks and 7 non-bank financial institutions, risk displayed on money laundering and terrorism financing appeared high for most of the surveyed operators.
Only two banks and three non-bank financial institutions displayed low risk.
Inspections showed bank employees are justified for their transactions, there is no document proving the source of cash transactions and no proper risk classification for business customers.
The overall Bank of Albania assessment is that banks applied satisfactory structures and systems on the prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing in 2017 reflected by an increase in the number and higher quality suspicious activity reports.
“However, considering the diversity of bank services and the development of electronic products enabling e-transactions, space could arise for elements targeting carrying out or hiding illegal activities,” says the central bank.
Albania amended the law on prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing last year to make criminal investigations more effective and introduced extended confiscation of unjustified wealth.
Albania’s central bank also amended its regulation to strengthen money laundering and terrorism financing in the banking system by tightening criteria on the integrity of workers dealing with it and requiring operators to report on people who have been declared as involved in terrorism financing and file annual reports based on a new standard format.
Albanian law enforcement authorities seized about €9 million in suspected money laundering transfers and bank accounts in 2017 with the majority of identified cases originating from drug trafficking and cultivation, according to an annual report by the country’s Financial Intelligence Unit.
Authorities identified family members of politically exposed individuals, people with criminal records and young men in their twenties involved in money laundering schemes in some 1,384 suspicious activity reports they received from financial institutions, mostly commercial banks, notaries public and money transfer agencies.
As of 2015, no Albanian has been reported to have left the country to become foreign fighters after an estimated 144 Albanians travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the armed conflicts there from 2012 to 2015.
While no incidents have taken place so far, the country is not considered immune to terrorism.
In late 2016, a coordinated regional counter terrorism operation led to the arrests of four Albanians, disrupting a potential attack targeting a World Cup qualifier between Albania and Israel, later held under tight security measures.
Albania is party to all Council of Europe conventions on counter-terrorism, including seizure and confiscation of the proceeds from crime and financing of terrorism.
In 2015, Albania was also removed from the watch list of Moneyval, the Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism, a monitoring body of the Council of Europe, which is expected to issue a new Albania report following a late 2017 assessment.
