Santo Domingo;- The president of the Association of Compliance Officers of the Dominican RepublicRamón González, stated that the Dominican Republic has a fairly robust legal framework to combat money laundering and that the country is a model for the region in this regard.
“I know that sometimes we are not very gullible about the level of modernity that our legal framework has, but I have been in other countries and I constantly interact with international organizations, and it is highly valued and recognized,” said González.
The specialist in prevention of money laundering and vice president of Compliance, Legal Consulting and Corporate Governance of Grupo Financiero Banesco, also said that the Dominican Republic’s anti-money laundering law has been updated.
“Everything starts with a first law that started in 2002 (7202) and was then updated with Law 155-17, which is when all the standards were updated,” he said during his participation in the program Reseñas, hosted by journalists Rafael Núñez and Adelaida Martínez R., on Entelevisión, every Saturday at 9:00 p.m.
Gonzalez added that the current law makes the prevention system effective, in which several actors participate: the obligated subjects, which are the construction companies, the dealers, the real estate companies, the stock exchanges among others, which have a preventive role. Regulators also participate, such as the Superintendency of Banks, the Superintendency of Securities and the Superintendency of Insurance, which play a preventive role because they create a series of regulations.
He also pointed out that there is another actor, the Financial Analysis Unit (UAF), which is the highest authority in all financial intelligence investigations and analysis, and this is the role of this body, which is the executive arm of Conclafit.
“It is good to know that the Dominican Republic has a National Committee that fights against money laundering, made up of the Minister of Defense, the Superintendent of Banks, the Superintendent of Securities, the DNCD… It is a multidisciplinary team that has a role: to create public policies to maintain prevention,” said González.
He pointed out that the Dominican Republic’s judiciary, the body that prosecutes money laundering cases, must also be cited, which he explained is a crime that seeks to conceal the illicit origin of funds.
“The Constitution itself establishes the importance of fighting transnational crimes… Now, how to operationalize that and how to make it increasingly functional and effective,
He also mentioned the international organization, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which is the body that establishes the international standards that all countries must follow, including the Dominican Republic, granting ratings after its annual evaluation.
“And you will decide how this evaluation ends, because it is about public policies where countries have to continue doing more to raise the level of regulations,” he said, adding that now the new criterion is effectiveness, since before it was a technical criterion.
Regarding how the Dominican Republic compares with other countries in the region, González said that it is one of the countries that has most complied with the 40 recommendations of cross-cutting impact that FATF makes to the countries it evaluates.
“The Dominican Republic continues to demonstrate a high level of commitment to this issue and has also shown good results,” he said, adding that the country, due to its results, represents the Egmont Group for the Americas, an entity that integrates all the financial analysis units in the world.
Finally, he called on people not to ignore the signs of money laundering and to educate themselves financially, while advising them to never lend their name or bank accounts to carry out any transaction, because the reality is that this is very delicate, since the digital footprint can be involved in a process.
