Articles under "#Illicit Financial Flows" category

Issue: WCO News 89

Fighting illicit financial flows: Brazilian Customs´ approach

The role of Customs has become increasingly complex over the years. On the one hand, international corporations and supply chains actors in general have put pressure on governments to shape a new operating model at the border, based on simplifying procedures and expediting the release of traded g...

Brazil’s approach

In 2014, Global Financial Integrity (GFI)[4], undertook a study in Brazil, producing a report entitled “Brazil: Capital Flight, Illicit Flows, and Macroeconomic Crises, 1960-2012....

Issue: WCO News 86

Wrap-up of the WCO Conference on Illicit Financial Flows and Trade Mis-Invoicing

Illicit financial flows (IFFs) have been an issue of increasing concern over the past two decades, with many discussions, raising questions on what IFFs include, what we know about them, and how they can be measured.

Estimates of the scale of the phenomenon have played a key role in attrac...

Issue: WCO News 77

US Trade and Transparency Unit targets global trade-based money laundering schemes

Combating money laundering in all its forms is a top priority for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) arm. ICE, an agency under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the United States (US), is tasked with a broad law enforcement mission, ...

Issue: WCO News 92 June 2020

Leaning forward: Singapore leverages digital data to help financial institutions augment trade finance compliance

Singapore Customs launched a Trade Finance Compliance Service on the country’s Networked Trade Platform to augment trade finance compliance efforts against money laundering and terrorist financing.

Banks and financial institutions offer multiple sol...

Trade finance and trade-based money laundering

As part of their money laundering related monitoring and reporting obligations, banks and other financial institutions have to assess whether these trade transactions are leg...

Issue: WCO News 86

Overview of German Customs’ fight against illicit financial flows

Monitoring and combating illicit financial flows (IFFs) represent a substantial challenge to all countries. This is particularly true for Germany with its growing significance as a financial centre. This article introduces the German Customs organizational structur...

Organizational structure

Germany’s authorities and, in particular, the German Customs administration, are taking up the challenge: the fight against IFFs that make use of the facilities provided by financial regulations...

Issue: WCO News 86

Trade in minerals: Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone launch a Customs verification portal

Three West African countries announced the publication of a joint portal for Customs verification of minerals at this year’s Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Forum for Responsible Mineral Supply Chains...

Issue: WCO News 86

Burkina Faso: the problem of gold smuggling

Although Burkina Faso has long been regarded as a land lacking in natural resources, over the space of just a few years, the country has been transformed into a mining player specializing in the production of gold. Among the reasons for this growth in the country’s extractive industries are the...

Gold exports

The gold exported by the industrial mines is sold to Metalor Technologies International, a Switzerland-based limited company, which specializes in the refining of precious metals. Artisanal miners, individual...