Ethics Newsline®

PARIS
Fifteen nations — including Israel, Russia, the Bahamas, and the Cayman Islands — were named last week by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as havens for money laundering.

Last week’s list marks the first time the FATF, an agency created by the G7 economic powers, has publicly identified governments in a bid to clamp down on banking fraud, reported the Reuters news agency.

The group estimates that $600 billion, roughly the value of the entire Canadian economy, flows through the world’s banks in illegal money-laundering operations each year, Reuters reported.

Following last week’s naming of 15 “noncooperative” banking havens, FATF president Gil Galvao said some governments have already “promised to act” to get off the list “as fast as possible.”

U.S. banks will be asked to pay special attention to transactions with the listed countries, according to deputy Treasury secretary Stuart Eizenstat, who was quoted in the Washington Post as saying the list is intended not to punish countries but to bring them “into international compliance with high standards.”