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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: robnhood who wrote (146826)	1/29/2002 12:30:32 PM
From: LLCF	Respond to of 436258

Don't know anymore.... 30? DAK

To: robnhood who wrote (146826)	1/29/2002 2:12:22 PM
From: robnhood	Respond to of 436258

<<<-- DJ US Securities Firms Leave Hole In Money-Laundering Battle -- By Dawn Kopecki Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Despite the passage of the most stringent anti-money-laundering laws in 15 years, terrorists and drug smugglers can still channel their funds through U.S. securities firms, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said at a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday. Levin said gaping holes remain, allowing some groups to continue anonymously financing terrorism campaigns or drug activities through U.S. securities firms. Levin said tens of thousands of offshore and unregulated businesses currently hold billions of dollars in accounts at U.S. securities firms. Levin, who sits on the Senate Select Intelligence Committee and chairs the Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Investigations, reported preliminary findings in a survey of 22 U.S. securities firms. "The securities industry, like the banking industry, has clear money-laundering risks that need to be addressed," Levin said. "These risks include tens of thousands of high-risk clients and hundreds of billions of dollars in high-risk funds." With less than half of the firms responding thus far, congressional investigators found more than 45,000 offshore banks, corporations, securities firms and insurance companies with well over $140 billion in assets held at just 10 of the U.S. securities companies surveyed. One of the firms responding had more than 16,000 offshore businesses as clients. The smallest account at any one firm is about $90 million, while the largest concentration of assets at any one firm is $67 billion, Levin said. "Foreign financial institutions carry higher money-laundering risks because, by the nature of their business, they handle the money of their clients and transfer these third-party funds through their U.S. securities accounts," Levin said. Securities brokers will soon be required to adhere to an entirely new standard for reporting suspicious activities as new anti-money-laundering regulations take effect, testified Annette Nazareth, the director of market regulation for the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Treasury Department has proposed a rule that would require broker-dealers to file suspicious activity reports, similar to existing anti-money-laundering rules applied to banks. The Treasury and SEC are also working on a rule that prohibits securities firms from providing correspondent accounts to foreign shell banks that aren't affiliated with a supervised bank, Nazareth said. The Bush administration and foreign allies have choked several funding sources of terrorist activities, seizing more than $80 million in terrorist assets and tracking down more than 165 individual financiers since Sept. 11. Treasury Deputy Secretary Kenneth Dam said the new anti-money-laundering laws allowed U.S. and foreign law enforcement to shut down the Al-Barakaat hawala network, seizing $1.9 million in assets. "We believe from our intelligence channels that al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations are suffering financially as a result of our actions," Dam testified. "We also believe that potential donors are being more cautious about giving money to organizations." Federal regulators said that finding and cutting off the supply of terrorist financing is more difficult than finding traditional money-laundering operations since the proceeds generally come from legitimate sources. "A particular form of this problem is presented in the case of illicit charities," Dam said, adding that some organizations use their charitable front to funnel money to terrorists. "Such organizations are, in my view, particularly deplorable. But at the same time, it cannot be doubted that some of them perform some charitable acts and that many donors believe that their donations are paying for charitable works." Dam said he expects the Treasury and other federal regulators to be able to implement the full force of the new U.S. anti-money-laundering laws before the end of the year, perhaps even within a few months. >>>