RIYADH: Iran has topped the world league table for money laundering and terror financing for the third consecutive year.
It was followed by Afghanistan, Guinea-Bissau, Tajikistan and Laos in the annual rankings compiled by the Basel Institute on Governance, an independent anti-corruption group based in Switzerland. The three lowest ranked countries were Finland, Lithuania and Estonia.
In the list of 146 countries, Saudi Arabia ranked 93rd, which gives the Kingdom’s banking system a superior rating to that of Turkey in 43rd, Pakistan in 46th, China in 51st, Russia in 64th and India in 88th, and only marginally behind Japan in 98th.
“The Kingdom has a clean record as far as money laundering is concerned,” said Syed Ahmed Ziauddin, chief of the financial institutions and public sector at Bank Aljazira. “All financial institutions, including banks, have a high compliance rating within the framework of international regulations and guidelines issued by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority. The banks in the Kingdom have world-class technical platforms on a par with advanced countries.”
Marwan Jafri, another local banker, said: “Saudi banks are fully committed to fighting money laundering and combating terrorism financing by adopting and maintaining appropriate policies, systems and controls. But there are ample proofs in the public domain about the involvement of Iran in money laundering and terror financing.”
This is the sixth year in which the institute has compiled its rankings. Its report says the greatest improvements in the past year have been made by Sudan, Taiwan, and Bangladesh. In South Asia, Afghanistan is the highest-risk country followed by Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Iran tops world league for money laundering and terror finance
Iran tops world league for money laundering and terror finance
A man detonates explosive belt during arrest attempt in Iraq, injuring 2 security members
- The raid was being conducted in the Al-Khaseem area in Qaim district that borders Syria
- No members of the security forces were killed
BAGHDAD: A man wearing an explosives belt blew himself up Friday while a security force was trying to arrest him in western Iraq near the Syrian border, killing himself and wounding two security members, an Iraqi security official said.
The raid was being conducted in the Al-Khaseem area in Qaim district that borders Syria, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The official added that “preliminary information” confirms that no members of the security forces were killed, while two personnel were injured and transferred for medical treatment.
Iraq’s National Security Agency said in a statement that its members besieged a hideout of a Daesh group security official and two of his bodyguards. One bodyguard ignited his explosives belt, killing him. It gave no further details.
Daesh once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq and declared a caliphate in 2014. The extremist group was defeated on the battlefield in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019 but its sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries.
In December, two US service members and an American civilian were killed in an attack in Syria that the United States blamed on Daesh. The US carried out strikes on Syria days later in retaliation.
US and Iraqi authorities in January began transferring hundreds of the nearly 9,000 Daesh members held in jails run by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria to Iraq, where Iraqi authorities plan to prosecute them.
