The Anti-Terrorist Statute would prohibit paying in cash for some goodssuch as cars, real estate and lots, in order to guarantee money traceability through the banking system. The logic is that a purchase that goes through a bank record who pays and who receives.
The project, presented as statutory lawalready establishes measures to track and cut off the flow of moneyand EL TIEMPO learned that it seeks to eventually include more.
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Those that are currently contemplated (in the draft of the known project) in terms of financial traceability They target organizations or people included in a terrorist registryto minerals and virtual assets.
The lawyer Julian Quintanaformer director of the CTI, consider the proposal reasonable. For him, requiring that certain purchases be paid for through the banking system makes it easier to identify the parties and contrast the origin of the resources. Furthermore, it clarifies that bankization does not in itself guarantee that money is legal, but it does facilitate its control. He also points out that the Palermo and Mérida conventions and the Security Council Resolution 1373 They do not order a ban on cash, although they offer grounds for adopting traceability tools.
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“In my opinion, The State can establish these requirements through a law with clear and proportional rules. Its legitimacy will depend on specifying the assets and amounts affected, guaranteeing accessible payment alternatives and respecting citizen rights. Under these conditions, it is a defensible tool for make it harder for criminal economies to hide their money. All framed in a terrorism prevention system, harmonious with all branches of public power and the private sector,” he told this newspaper.
Colombian money Photo:iStock.
What is in the project
In minerals, the text creates the National Traceability System for Strategic Mineralswith a single registry of miners, traders, smelters and transporters, and a digital proof of origin per batch, mandatory in every transaction. Gold without traceability would be presumed to be of illicit originalthough it admits evidence to the contrary. It would require minerals to be declared at the border with value equal to or greater than USD 10,000 and would create the crime of commercialization of strategic minerals, with prison from 6 to 14 years and a fine of double the value of the mineral.
He terrorist registry would be mandatory consultation as part of anti-money laundering due diligence for the financial, foreign exchange, stock market and insurance sectors, as well as notaries, public instrument registration offices and foreign trade. Who appears there would suffer the freezing of funds and assets. I would order it one Targeted Financial Sanctions Authorityattached to the Uiafin the Ministry of Finance, which should freeze within 24 hours to inclusion. A specialized criminal judge would do an automatic post-check in 72 hoursand the freeze would have to guarantee access to subsistence resources and defense expenses.
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The Virtual asset service providers would need licensingthey would apply the “travel rule” on the payer and beneficiary, they would report to the Uiaf and freeze wallets by order of the Authority. Another tool is abbreviated preventive seizure of assetsautonomous from the forfeiture of ownership, on listed assets and front men whose assets are disproportionate to their lawful activity. If the Prosecutor’s Office accredits this condition, it would be up to the affected party to demonstrate the lawful origin of the assets; that is to say, the burden of proof is reversed. The project requests extraordinary powers for six months to regulate it.
The lawyer and former delegate for Criminal Finances of the Prosecutor’s Office, Andrés Jiménez, explained that the main challenges will be to prevent what is approved from generating duality of functions with the Prosecutor’s Office or that due to formal defects the measures that are of course necessary against these organizations may be affected.
“Although the issue requires regulatory attention and attention, in my opinion per unit of matter it would be risky to include it within the project, as well as regulate it through extraordinary powers,” he indicated.
Colombian money Photo:iStock
For his part, the General (r) Juan Carlos Buitrago highlighted the project because it already incorporates legal, administrative, financial and criminal and security policy instruments, as well as sanctions for people or companies with commercial ties or contractual with the listings, in line with practices of USAthe UN and the European Union.
“This measure will contribute to the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism, in accordance with the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force, FATF. In that direction, it would be worthwhile for the project to be strengthened by including innovative tools to confront criminal economies, such as implementation of a FATF-Colombia type mechanism at the head of the Uiaf and the Attorney General’s Officearticulating other actors, which does not exist today,” he pointed out.
Justice Editorial
