Panama: Report on Observance of Standards and Codes—FATF Recommendations for Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism
IMF Staff Country Reports, February 18, 2014
Source details
- Canonical URL
- Panama: Report on Observance of Standards and Codes—FATF Recommendations for Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism
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Bibliographic details
- Published: February 18, 2014
- Series: IMF Staff Country Reports
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9781475531916.002
Summary findings
- The report assesses the Observance of Standards and Codes on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Recommendations for Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) in Panama.
- Panama is vulnerable to money laundering from a number of sources, including drug trafficking and other predicate crimes committed abroad—such as fraud and financial and tax crimes.
- Panama has criminalized money laundering and terrorism financing, but its AML/CFT framework is not fully in line with the FATF recommendations.
- Some requirements for combating the financing of terrorism are included in subsidiary instruments, but these appear to go beyond the AML Law and, therefore, are inconsistent with the legal principles established under the Constitution.
- There are inadequate statistics on money laundering investigations, prosecutions, and convictions to properly assess the effectiveness of implementation of the legislation.
Vulnerabilities and predicate offenses
- Identified sources of vulnerability:
- Drug trafficking
- Fraud committed abroad
- Financial crimes committed abroad
- Tax crimes committed abroad
Legal and institutional framework issues
- Legal status:
- Money laundering: criminalized
- Terrorism financing: criminalized
- Compliance findings:
- AML/CFT framework not fully aligned with FATF Recommendations.
- Certain subsidiary instruments contain CFT requirements that appear to exceed the AML Law and conflict with constitutional legal principles.
Effectiveness and data limitations
- Data and assessment constraints:
- Inadequate statistics on money laundering investigations.
- Inadequate statistics on money laundering prosecutions.
- Inadequate statistics on money laundering convictions.
- Consequence:
- The inadequacy of these statistics prevents a proper assessment of the effectiveness of legislation implementation.