Legislation to add casinos in the pipeline
The United States government in a new report has lambasted the Philippines for doing little to strengthen its anti-money laundering procedures, according to reports.
The 2017 edition of the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, released by the U.S. Department of State, pinpointed five locations in the Asia Pacific as “jurisdictions of primary concern,” including the Philippines.
Last February, hackers who stole $101 million from Bangladeshi bank accounts in New York sent $81 million of the take to a bank branch in Manila; from there, the money was reportedly withdrawn through remittance firm Philrem Services Inc. and then funneled through local casinos by two Chinese junket operators.
“The most pressing AML deficiency is the continuing non-inclusion of casino operators and other designated non-financial businesses and professions as covered entities,” griped the U.S. State Department in its report. “Legislation to correct this deficiency has been languishing for many years.”
The Philippine government has “agreed in principle to endorse the inclusion of casinos” in the AML law, but the legislation has yet to pass. According to GGRAsia and CalvinAyre.com, among other news outlets, a panel of lawmakers must consolidate three related bills. One would set the reporting threshold at PHP500,000 (US$10,000), while another proposes to fix the amount at a whopping PHP5 million (US$100,118).
The U.S. is also concerned that the country’s bank secrecy provisions, considered to be “among the world’s strictest,” require investigators to obtain a court order to access bank records in most cases.
“This makes it difficult for the Anti-Money Laundering Council to perform its basic financial analytical functions and inhibits the ability of law enforcement to proactively pursue money laundering cases in the absence of a link to a specific predicate crime,” stated the report.
