Luanda, ANGOLA, November 21 - Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) are subject to reinforced diligences, in the light of the law on prevention and combating money laundering and terrorism financing approved by Parliament on Wednesday.,

 

Under the law, Politically Exposed Persons are public officer-holders and their relatives to the 3rd generation.

 

The document is part of the recommendations by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), prohibiting the establishment of the shell banks.

The new law aims, among other things, to do away with the payment in huge sums of money to offshore institutions linked to criminal organisations.

 

The work was harmonised by the US and European criminal investigation services, which found that 70 percent of the capital movements of terrorist organisations  circulated through "shell banks".

An Angola's National Reserve Bank (BNA) source told Angop that the shell banks do not have a physical presence in the country in which they are incorporated.

It added that they neither are linked to any financial group nor subject to regulation.

The Law on Preventing and Combating Money Laundering, Financing Terrorism and the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction was passed with 177 votes in favor, none against and no abstentions.

 

The MPs also approved in definitive the Law for the Protection of Victims, Witnesses and Defendants - Collaborators in Criminal Proceedings.

 

The National Assembly also approved the Video Surveillance Law.

  

 

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