Anti-money laundering meeting cancelled amid terror fear

The 19th annual meeting of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG), which was scheduled to be held in Dhaka this month, has been cancelled in the wake of rising terror attacks in Bangladesh.

In a statement, APG yesterday said the scheduled Dhaka meeting will now be held in the United States in September, based on consent of the members. Details of the meeting will be given out as soon as final arrangements are made, it added.

“APG has cancelled the Dhaka meeting after most of its member nations expressed concern about the security issue in Bangladesh,” a Bangladesh Bank official told The Daily Star.

The official said travel restrictions imposed by some developed countries are also a reason behind cancelling the meeting.

APG is an autonomous and collaborative international organisation founded in 1997. It has 41 member countries and a number of international and regional observers, including the Financial Action Task Force, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units.

The key role of APG members and observers is to ensure effective implementation and enforcement of internationally accepted standards against money laundering and the financing of terrorism, in particular the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering.

The meeting also provides useful information to the private sector to better inform them of international developments in anti-money laundering issues.

This year, APG was ready to hold its annual meeting on July 23-28 in Dhaka. Its last annual meeting was held in New Zealand in July 2015. Everything about the Dhaka meeting was on track till the Gulshan attack and things have changed after that.

The cancellation of such a big meeting, which was the first of its kind in Bangladesh, has not only hurt the country's image, but also taken a toll on the earnings of Dhaka hotels where several hundred foreign delegates were supposed to stay.

According to another BB official, 350 guests from 49 countries had confirmed their participation and accordingly, rooms for them were booked for five days and nights at Radisson Blu Hotel in Dhaka. Moreover, venues were also booked for the meeting. “The hotel will incur a huge loss as all the bookings related to the meeting have been cancelled. We are sorry for the inconvenience,” said the BB official.

Around two years ago, Bangladesh got rid of the APG list of risky countries. Now, the country runs the risk of being reclassified as a country exposed to money laundering and terror financing because of slow implementation of laws on battling the illicit flow of funds, the APG said.

The APG, a global body that ranks countries on money laundering and terror financing, acknowledges that Bangladesh has formulated laws but there are problems with their implementation. If Bangladesh cannot improve its rating in at least two indicators of the APG by July this year, the country will again be branded as a risky nation, said officials at the central bank.