House set to approve new money-laundering law

House set to approve new money-laundering law

Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The House of Representatives is scheduled to approve on Tuesday a
new version of the country's money-laundering law that would meet
international standards, and is expected to be able to curb
rampant money laundering more effectively.

Minister of Justice and Human Rights Affairs Yusril Ihza
Mahendra said at a final meeting with the House Commission II on
legal affairs that the amendment of the law would help Indonesia
avoid financial sanctions from the Financial Action Task Force
(FATF) when it convenes early next month.

"I hope Indonesia can eventually be excluded from the list of
uncooperative countries," he said.

Indonesia is currently listed as one of the countries deemed
uncooperative in combating money-laundering.

FATF is a global group working under the auspices of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Previously Yunus Husein from the Financial Transactions and
Report Analysis Center (PPATK) said that as Indonesia finalized
the amendment of the law, the country was unlikely to be
immediately removed from the uncooperative list as the global
agency would need more time to assess the implementation of the
new money-laundering law.

However, Yusril added in his speech that he was upbeat
Indonesia could get off the list in the near future as "the
United States and Australian governments have said they would
help Indonesia to get removed from the list."

Indonesia will indeed report the completion of the amendment
of the law to the Paris meeting.

A. Teras Narang, the head of Commission II, listed at least
several changes of the new money-laundering law.

For example, in the existing law, gambling activities were
not included as crimes of money-laundering.

The amendment also complies with the principle of double
criminality. It means, for example, money generated from gambling
that is considered legal in Australia should be considered as a
result of criminal activity in Indonesia where gambling is
illegal.

The team has also added a regulation ensuring secrecy in the
reporting of suspicious financial transactions in order to
prevent any leaking of information to the criminals.

Teras said that the amendment also included an "assertion on
mutual legal assistance".

Mutual legal assistance allows a foreign country to
participate in investigating laundering crimes in Indonesia,
especially where these are committed by the citizens of the
country in question.

The current law has already allowed such assistance, but the
FATF deemed it inadequate as it only covers the search for
evidence. But the FATF wants to include the search for and
confiscation of documents, and other evidence that a crime has
been committed.