ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING – FOR THE ATTENTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF ACCOUNTANTS

Nowadays, in the context of interconnected economies, the phenomenon of money laundering and terrorist financing has escalated, with a direct impact in Romania as well. The European Union has intensified the fight against this phenomenon, which risks making the financial system vulnerable, through the 4th and 5th European Directives, which extend the professional obligations of accounting experts and financial auditors in the field of preventing and combating money laundering and terrorist financing. Because professional accountants must act in the public interest, IFAC has developed a guide that supports professional accountants in their efforts to limit the phenomenon of corruption and money laundering at an international level.

Righteous or Rebellious? Narratives of the Qatar Diplomatic Crisis in British and Qatari Media

Media representations of international conflicts are instrumental in determining how we imagine, evaluate, and discuss conflicts. The Qatar diplomatic crisis, an ongoing international diplomatic conflict between Qatar and a Saudi Arabia-led coalition of nations, has received extensive global media coverage. This study compares British and Qatari media discourse of this crisis, by examining ten news articles from the BBC and Al Jazeera English (AJE) for bias in language based on the respective national contexts. Evidence of agenda-setting, priming, nationalization of discourse, and public diplomacy was revealed in articles from both outlets. AJE, due to its relative political proximity to the conflict, ascribes the diplomatic crisis much more significance than does the BBC. Both outlets also differ in their evaluations of allegations of terrorist-financing against Qatar and the legitimacy of the blockade. These results indicate that media outlets which claim to be impartial are nonetheless influenced by national contexts when reporting on international conflicts. This study is the first to apply previously-established media effects theories and discourse analysis approaches to media representations of the ongoing Qatar crisis and furthers our understanding of power dynamics in narratives of global conflicts.

The Role of Faith Based Organizations in Development: A Critical Analysis

There has been a relatively new dimension of development discourse to analyze the role of Faith Based Organizations (FBOs) in global development. In doing so, most of the academic literatures have addressed how FBOs positively contributed to the global development over the years. In contrast, there are some criticisms against the FBOs. This article attempts to elucidate three major criticisms against the FBOs including a. sectarian service provision, b. proselytization and c. terrorist financing. This article finds a mixed result arguing that there are limitations of FBOs in the concerned cases but those limitations do not reduce the significance of the FBOs in global development. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#63-64-; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2018 P 81-108

New Principles of Counteracting Cyberlaundering under the Act of 1 March 2018 on Counteracting Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing

Cyberlaundering is a money-laundering mechanism that has been developing since the beginning of this century. Only recently, however, have the detailed rules for preventing this phenomenon been introduced. The Act of 1 March 2018 on Counteracting Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing introduced a number of solutions defining the identification and verification obligations for transactions in cyberspace. Following these changes, it will be necessary to develop the best methods of cooperation between all actors of the cyberlaundering system: obligated institutions, cooperating units and law enforcement agencies. The author draws attention to the national cyberlaundering risk assessment, prepared with the participation of obliged institutions, cooperating units and law enforcement bodies. Its use will affect the collection and sharing of more information useful in the detection process and the timing of detection activities. A specific area of national risk assessment will be cybercrime. The author believes that the detection of crimes in cyberspace should be included in a new legal framework, which would allow the specificity of the digital area to be directly taken into account, without having to resort to often difficult and practically always ambiguous legal interpretations in this regard.

FINANCIAL MONITORING OF CRYPTOCURRENCY TRANSACTIONS IN THE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION SYSTEM: FOREIGN EXPERIENCE

The article examines the current international experience of Japan, Spain, Poland, Bulgaria, and the Republic of Belarus in the development of financial monitoring of cryptocurrency transactions. The methodological basis of the research was general scientific methods of cognition: observation, generalization, comparison, deduction, induction, analysis, synthesis. The article summarizes the models for building a financial monitoring system for transactions with cryptocurrencies: the «observation»model; the «risk minimization»model; and the «prohibition» model. The main characteristics of financial monitoring of transactions with cryptocurrency are determined by the following criteria: regulatory document, state body, punishment for committing a crime. Measures from foreign practice to improve the Financial Monitoring System in terms of the use of cryptocurrency for terrorist financing are defined, which can be taken into account by domestic regulators (in particular, identifying customers and beneficiaries for all transactions with cryptocurrency, regardless of its amount; developing mechanisms for information exchange between the State Financial Monitoring Service and law enforcement agencies; stimulating and supporting the work of the state financial monitoring service; strengthening and expanding international cooperation in the field of countering the financing of terrorism). Keywords: financial monitoring, terrorist financing, public administration, cryptocurrencies, digital assets

Terrorist Financing via Money Transfer Systems

With the rise of the Islamic State and the corresponding war in Syria, which has caused an international refugee crisis, the combat of terrorism has, again, become a major goal for European authorities. One popular approach to the combat of terrorism is to interrupt the funding of terrorist organisations. Whereas other studies have focused mainly on the implementation of prevention measures, this study investigates terrorist financing methods from the offender’s perspective with a focus on so-called money transfer systems to reveal weaknesses in the regulation of terrorist financing in general and money transfer systems in particular. For this purpose, qualitative interviews with 15 presumed providers of illegal financial services and 15 European compliance experts were conducted. This paper has implications for law enforcement, regulatory authorities, investigators and financial service providers. Innovative measures such as the use of electronic surveillance and expanding the jurisdiction of undercover agents are suggested.

Evaluation of Potential Cryptocurrency Development Ability in Terrorist Financing

Terrorist financing is the economic basis of terrorist activities and the lifeline of terrorist organizations. In recent years, terrorist organizations have gradually come to use cryptocurrency to finance their activities based on traditional ways of raising funds. The anonymity of cryptocurrency is attractive to terrorist organizations, but its use remains at a low level. To explore the future development ability of cryptocurrency in terrorist financing, we study its internal characteristics and development status, as well as the supervisory systems of international organizations. This study hopes to enhance our understanding of the potential risks of cryptocurrency and serve as a reference for the fight against terrorist financing in the international community.