New Panama post to fight Money Laundering

ANOTHER  MOVE  to counter money laundering in Panama, and to get the country off  an international grey  list. comes with the appointment of Panamanian economist Francisco Bustamante as director of supervision and regulation of non-financial entities.

The appointment  was announced by The Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) on Monday, July 6.

The 66-year-old economist, who retired from the Inter-American Development Bank, will lead a team of 20 people who will verify compliance with the anti-money-laundering laws approved April 16.

The team will not review the activity of banks, insurance companies and credit unions as those will continue being supervised by their current regulators.

Bustamante, who trained in economics at the University of Panama and the Institute of Economic Research at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, said the team will help the economic sectors to implement a system to detect money laundering or the financing of terrorism.

“We are the preventative body that tries to prevent these things from happening,” said Bustamante, who added his team will be working with the Financial Analysis Unit, which monitors suspicious transactions to detect illicit activities.

The government is in the final stages of the development of regulations that will define the practical applications of the anti-money laundering laws in each sector. These will eventually result in the existence of 15 regulations.

“You cannot say a jewelry store and the Colón Free Zone do the same thing, so they need difference regulations,” Bustamante said. “Each has its own peculiarities and risks.”

The passage of the new money laundering regulations was one of the changes Panama was forced to make to remove itself from a grey list published by international agencies. Panama hopes to exit the grey list next year due, in part, to the changes in its financial regulations with regard to money laundering.