IMF Staff Country Reports

This paper summarizes the anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) measures in place in the Virgin Islands (VI). The overall understanding of ML and TF risks in the VI is fair and narrow, particularly with respect to the design of VI legal persons and legal arrangements, and their misuse abroad. All banks and some legal practitioners demonstrated a good understanding of their ML risks and AML/CFT obligations. The VI generally provides mutual legal assistance within a reasonable timeframe and its quality is generally good. While competent authorities were able to demonstrate their ability to furnish basic and beneficial ownership information in a timely manner in the context of international cooperation requests they do not proactively seek international cooperation, and the VI has not investigated or prosecuted any cases of misuse of legal persons and arrangements. The law should be amended to provide for the full range of powers to carry out financial and complex investigations as well as effective, proportionate, and dissuasive sanctions for ML, whether such ML relates to drug offences or other crimes.