The Belarusian delegation headed by Director of the Financial Monitoring Department of the State Control Committee Vyacheslav Reut took part in the Plenary meeting of the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (EAG).
The meeting was attended by more than 200 representatives of the EAG member states: Belarus, India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, as well as observer states, invited jurisdictions and international organisations.
The Plenary Session was preceded by the EAG working groups on technical assistance, typologies, legal issues, where Belarusian experts took an active part and demonstrated their achievements.
The Plenary Session considered the main results of the EAG work for 2022-2023 and adopted the EAG strategy for 2024-2028.
Elections of the EAG Chairman were held, who by unanimous decision became Yuri Chikhanchin, Director of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service of Russia. The priorities of Russia's chairmanship in the EAG for the next 2 years were considered, including preparation of EAG member states for mutual evaluations; strengthening cooperation with FATF and FATF-type regional groups; increasing efforts to counteract illegal use of virtual assets; countering terrorism financing; training of personnel in the "anti-money laundering" sphere.
Reports on the progress of the Russian Federation and the Kyrgyz Republic in implementing the recommendations of international experts on the results of the assessment of technical compliance of the anti-money laundering systems of these countries were considered.
Within the framework of the EAG Plenary Week, a forum on financial technologies and circulation of virtual currencies was also held on the initiative of the Chinese side. The Belarusian delegation presented a report on the organisation of supervisory activities over digital currencies at the Forum. The experts shared their best practices in regulating this sphere.
In addition, the forum presented reports on topics related to the regulation of financial technology markets, the use of artificial intelligence in the field of anti-money laundering, practices for monitoring cryptocurrencies, and combating their use for criminal purposes.
The 25th meeting of the Council of Heads of Financial Intelligence Units (CFIU) of the CIS countries was also held. The meeting was attended by heads and experts of financial intelligence units of the Council's member countries, observer countries, as well as China, representatives of CIS sectoral cooperation bodies and international organisations.
Vyacheslav Reut presented to the participants of the meeting information on legislative changes in the "anti-money laundering" sphere adopted in the Republic of Belarus during 2023.
The meeting considered joint measures to counter the use of cryptocurrencies for criminal purposes and issues of information exchange between financial intelligence agencies.