FINTRAC CALLS FOR INCREASED VIGILANCE WHEN DEALING WITH NAURU FINANCIAL ENTITIES

Ottawa, January 16, 2002 - The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) today issued an advisory to all Canadian financial institutions, money service businesses and other reporting entities alerting them to the risk of doing business with individuals and companies based in the Republic of Nauru, a small island in the South Pacific. This follows the December 5 decision of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to issue countermeasures against Nauru for having failed to enact appropriate amendments to its anti-money laundering legislation by the November 30 deadline. Canada is a member of the FATF and strongly supports its efforts to combat money laundering.

Reporting entities should exercise an enhanced level of caution in dealing with financial transactions to, or from, Nauru, said FINTRAC Director Horst Intscher. Any financial transactions involving companies or individuals based in Nauru should be considered as potentially suspicious.

In June 2000, the FATF identified Nauru as a Non-cooperative Country and Territory (NCCT) because it lacked a basic set of anti-money laundering regulations, including the criminalization of money laundering, customer identification and a suspicious transaction reporting system.

The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions has also issued an advisory to all federally regulated financial institutions. For a copy of the letter visit: www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca.

To link to the FATF website, please refer to: www.oecd.org

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