PPATK officially operates as dirty money watchdog
PPATK officially operates as dirty money watchdog
Sari P. Setiogi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government officially launched on Monday the Financial
Transaction and Report Analysis Center (PPATK) as the highest
authority to combat money laundering in the country.
Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in his remarks to officially launch the
operation of the agency, stated that the operation of the agency
showed the government's commitment to fighting both trans-
national crimes and internal crimes.
However, he also warned PPATK to keep high its transparency
and accountability in order to avoid any possible excess.
PPATK was actually established in April 2002. But, until it
officially commenced operations on Monday, its main function was
to support the government in developing an anti-money-laundering
policy.
Prior to PPATK's official launch on Monday, the role of
supervising suspicious transactions in the country's financial
sector was carried out by Bank Indonesia's Special Investigation
Unit (UKIP).
"PPATK works to discover covert crimes related to money
laundering practices," PPATK's chairman Yunus Husein said, during
his speech at the inauguration ceremony.
The watchdog will collect, record and analyze all information
reported by financial service providers, both as suspicious
transaction reports (STR) and cash transaction reports (CTR).
Reports which indicate criminal activity will be forwarded to
the police for further investigation.
PPATK will also give inputs and recommendations to the
government on setting the national policy for preventing and
fighting money laundering.
Yunus expected PPATK could help decrease the number of crimes
related to money laundering, as well as creating a stable and
trustworthy financial situation in the country, as part of the
global fight against money laundering.
The Paris-based global anti-money-laundering watchdog, the
Financial Action Task Force (FATF), has listed Indonesia among
the uncooperative countries and territories (NCCTs) in the fight
against money laundering since June 2001, together with seven
other countries, including the Philippines, Nigeria, Egypt and
Myanmar.
FATF was set up by developed nations of the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
"Until (and including) the last FATF (plenary) meeting in
Stockholm early this month, we are still on their list. Legally,
we have fulfilled their standards to be removed from the list,
but they are still waiting for our implementation of moves to
fight money-laundering crimes here," said Yunus.
During the ceremony, UKIP's director M. Ali Said Kasim handed
over to PPATK 20 suspicious transaction reports (STR) which were
still being investigated.
Law No. 25/2003 on Money Laundering defines money laundering
as the practice of converting money generated from corruption,
bribery, smuggling, banking-related crimes, drug-related crimes,
people trafficking, gambling and terrorism into legal
investments.
Money laundering can be broken into three major actions:
placement (placing illegally-gained funds into a financial
system), layering (transferring illegally-gained assets into a
financial system) and integration (using illegally-gained assets
that have been placed in a financial system).
Over the past eight months, UKIP recorded 291 cases of STR
worth Rp 4.2 trillion (US$469.54 million) and reported by 31
banks.
"Of the number, 271 have been processed and 82 cases, valued
at Rp 2.42 billion, have been passed to the police for further
investigation," he said.
The 82 cases reported to the police were dominated by banking-
related crimes (27 cases worth Rp 1.95 trillion), fraud (18 cases
worth Rp 158.3 billion), corruption (12 cases worth Rp 60
billion), embezzlement (seven cases worth Rp 51.75 billion),
terrorism-related funds (five cases worth Rp 500 million) and
counterfeiting (two cases worth Rp 253 million).