ANTI MONEY LAUNDERING: LAWS TO KNOW

By Abduraheem Padinhare

Anti Money Laundering: Law To Know

Whoever willfully commits any of the acts like conducting any transaction with the intention of concealing or disguising their illicit source, acquiring, possessing or using the proceeds upon receiving them, assisting the predicator of the predicate offence to escape punishment shall be considered as committing the crime. Proven predicators may face fines that range from AED 50,000 to 1,000,000. This has to be more paid attention by the investors. It mainly focused upon the real estate, precious stone and metal sellers in their business even though it is applicable to other fields too.

GUIDELINES OF CENTRAL BANK:

If there is a global transaction in a business and money received from another country you have to inform it to the bank by relevant document of present transactions or in future and the source of income. If this procedure is not compliance, you are doing the action under the risk of Anti Money Laundering Rules and Compliance in UAE. According to the Central Bank Rules of UAE each transaction to be checked under Anti Money Laundry compliance. Otherwise, you may end up in freezing bank accounts, financial investigation, security investigation.

STRINGENT LEGAL MEASURES:

On 23rd of September 2018 as part of the requirement of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a Federal Decree No. 20 of 2018 on anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism was issued.

THE NEW ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING LAW NO. 20 OF 2018

  1. On 23 September 2018 the new law was issued to organize the money laundering fines and amend the previous laws, especially regarding the amendment of law no 4 of 2002 of anti-money laundering. The new law changed the UAE regulation regarding the implemented crimes applied by law 7/2017 and 8/2017.

  2. By the new law, if any person who intentionally transferred, hided or processed any amounts of money from any illegal activities, then the money laundering charge will be awarded against him.

  3. . In the eye of new law, money laundering is a different crime compared to the main crime, which was the source of the laundered money and that even if the criminal has been punished for the main crime, he may still face separate sentence for hiding such money considered as an individual crime. The case in such nature does not have to wait or depend on a judgment of the main crime to convict the criminal.

  4. If the crime was committed under the name of the company or for its sake. However even if the company could be considered liable, still the individual committed the crime bears personal responsibility for such crime.

THE CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS AND SEIZURE UNDER THE NEW ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING LAW

  1. As a part of investigation, the law empowered the Prosecution as to check the auditing reports and documents in possession of others, and to allow access to communication, email correspondence or computers to trace the money and to monitor the accounts.

  2. Under Article 5 of Law 20/2018 provides the governor of the Central Bank with the right to seize the money for period of 7 days, the Prosecution and Criminal Court have the right to allocate, follow, evaluate and seize or freeze any amounts of money without even informing the owner, if such amounts were sourced or linked to any crime.

  3. The law empowers the Criminal Court and Prosecution to impose a travel ban on the owner until the end of criminal investigation and the end of a crime. They are also authorized to issue the decision to restrict the money as far as acting in good faith owner from processing any transaction, which could lead to hiding or breaching the seizing order.

  4. In case the money owner wanted to defend against the seizing order, he has the right to raise a grievance against it before the competent court. The decision cannot be appealed if that appeal is dismissed. But the money owner has still had the right to raise the grievance after 3 months from the initial dismissal if he is not having any new circumstances to raise the grievance. By the event of new circumstances or reasons, he still may raise the grievance within 3 months.

  5. The court has the right to appoint a person to manage or sell the equipment if any used for money laundering even before the judgment was issued, if in case there was an urgency to sell them.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION UNDER THE NEW ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING LAW

As per article 18 of Law 20 of 2018, the UAE local judicial authority has the discretionary power on request of any country which has a relevant treaty with UAE on the cooperation with other judicial authorities and to provide evidences on investigation and trial processes connected to a crime, which has happened in any other countries. To seize or freeze the assets or a chip used in the crime; to provide all auditing reports kept in the UAE financial institutes; for inspecting involved individuals and buildings, to hear witnesses and to collect evidences; and to deliver and extradite individuals and things used in the crime are the discretionary power has the authority in decision making.

THE EXPECTED PUNISHMENT FOR MONEY LAUNDERING IN FELONY AND MISDEMEANOR CRIMES UNDER THE UAE LAWS

The court has the right to confiscate as per the law even if the defendant is dead. The breach of the anti-money laundering law shall lead to mandatory deportation under Article 29 of the law 20 of 2018 upon serving the sentence, in case if the criminal is an expat in the matter of felony crimes. It will be subjected to the discretionary power of the court if the law was breached in misdemeanor crimes for the application of deportation. Otherwise, jail sentence will be also awarded sometimes.