Pulwama attack: How a Paris blacklisting may destroy Pakistan economically

The week-long deliberations of the Paris headquartered Financial Action Task Force (FATF) began on Sunday. And India, for its part, is set be present a dossier on how the Pakistani state is supporting Jaish-e-Mohammad, the terror group believed to be behind the suicide bombing in Pulwama.

At present, Pakistan finds itself in the category of monitored jurisdictions, where it was placed by FATF in 2018. India will be hoping its dossier will convince FATF to now place Pakistan in the category of high-risk and non-cooperative jurisdictions, along with North Korea and Iran. The other 10 along with Pakistan in the monitored nations category include Syria, Sri Lanka, Yemen and Botswana.

FATF is a policy-making body established in 1989 to “set standards and promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system”. At present, it has 38 members, of which 36 are nations and two regional bodies (the Gulf Cooperation Council and the European Commission). In addition to India, some of the other members of the FATF are the US, Israel, UK, China, Russia, France and Germany.

FATF has a list of 48 specific recommendations aimed at combating money laundering and terror financing. There are unique terror-related recommendations that need to be followed globally. These include measures related to criminalisation of terror financing, targeted financial sanctions related to terrorism and terrorist financing, and measures to prevent the misuse of non-profit organisations by terror organisations. Readmore