Government Adopts Strategy for the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing

On February 13, 2020, the Government of the Republic of Serbia adopted a Strategy for the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing. The strategy covers the period 2020-2024 and the accompanying Action Plan for the period 2020-2022.

The strategy was drafted by the Expert Team of the Coordination Body for the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, which consisted of 42 members representing 23 institutions. Representatives of the non-governmental and private sectors also had the opportunity to participate in the drafting of the Strategy and submit their comments. Support to preparation of this draft was also supported by Project “Enhancing the quality and efficiency of Suspicious Transactions Reporting (STR) and Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering (APML) core functions”, funded by the European Union. The beneficiary of the project is the Ministry of Finance - Administration for the prevention of Money Laundering, and the project is implemented by a consortium led by KPMG.

The support of the Project was reflected in providing domestic and foreign expertise and organization of workshops, in order to prepare the Strategy in accordance with European and international standards.

The overall objective of the adopted Strategy is active public-private cooperation and an approach based on risk analysis and assessment.

In addition to the overall objective, the Strategy has clearly defined four specific objectives: 1) reducing the risk of money laundering, terrorism financing and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction through continuous improvement of the strategic, legislative and institutional framework, 2) preventing  financial and non-financial assets, that is being suspected of criminal offense, to enter financial syste 3) the effective and effective punishment of perpetrators of the criminal offense of money laundering and seizure of illegally acquired property, and 4) the detection and elimination of threats of terrorist financing and the punishment of perpetrators of the criminal offense of terrorism financing.

The activities defined by the action plan that followed the previous National Strategy for the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing were fulfilled, and thus created the conditions for the adoption of a new strategic framework and action plan for the next four years.