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Doha, Qatar: The General Authority of Customs (GAC) is committed to combating money laundering and has completed a strategic project to elevate its effectiveness of anti-laundering procedures, a Customs official has revealed.
In an interview published in the Customs monthly newsletter, Mohammed Hamad Al Shawi – Head of Cases and Investigations at the Legal Affairs Department of the GAC, said the strategic project significantly impacted the development of procedures in combating money laundering. It has also clarified the Authority’s role and understanding in dealing with money laundering and terrorism by residents as evaluated by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Earlier this year, the FATF praised Qatar’s efforts in combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing. FATF said that Qatar has a very strong legal and regulatory framework, which makes Qatar the first country in the Middle East and North Africa region whose system has a high level of compliance with all 40 recommendations at this assessment stage.
The report indicated that the AML/CFT system in the State of Qatar is particularly effective in the areas of assessing and understanding the risks of money laundering, terrorist financing, and the supervision of the financial sector and risk-based supervision of the non-financial sector, seizure and confiscation of proceeds of crime, the implementation of targeted financial sanctions related to combating terrorist financing, management and control of the non-profit organisations, and protection it from terrorist financing operations.
Al Shawi stressed that the GAC works to monitor the movement of money across borders. He added that travellers must submit a declaration regarding money, precious metals, precious stones, and negotiable financial instruments if the value is more than or equal to QR50,000.
“Refraining from submitting a declaration or providing incorrect information subjects the perpetrators to legal accountability in addition to the seizure of funds,” he added.
Al Shawi also underlined the importance of the Al Nadeeb system for processing violations and speeding up transactions.
“Customs violations vary, some more frequently committed by importers than others, especially minor violations that do not amount to customs smuggling crimes. To speed up the completion of transactions, the Al Nadeeb system has been updated so that importers will be fined directly for the violations they committed through (instant fines) on Al Nadded. The competent employee at the customs port chooses the specific violation directly, and in exchange for it is the appropriate fine per Customs Law No. 40 of 2002.” Meanwhile, the GAC recorded 244,248 released transactions in July, with 97% completed within an hour. The Air Cargo and Private Airports Administration registered 205,002; Maritime Customs concluded 12,977 statements, and the Land Customs Administration recorded 5,750.
China and India were the top import and export countries to Qatar in July, while the GAC made 247 seizures in the same month, with 4100g of narcotic substance the largest seizure. The Best Government Entity in Release Time was the Ministry of Culture, with an average release time of 5.92 hours. The GAC transferred 28,846 transactions to government agencies in July.
