Russian President Vladimir Putin had a working meeting with Head of the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring (Rosfinmonitoring) Yury Chikhanchin on March 9, Kremlin reports.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had a working meeting with Head of the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring (Rosfinmonitoring) Yury Chikhanchin on March 9, Kremlin reports.
Chikhanchin briefed on the FATF meeting devoted to the issue of financing terrorism. He said: «Many countries take an ambiguous line on this issue, but we stand by our position. We have coordinated with you on this and are developing three main areas of work. First are the international terrorist centres and their cells in different places, including on Russian soil. Second are the terrorists fighting in Syria, on ISIS-controlled territory, and third are businesses that assist terrorism and make money this way. We are working with our colleagues abroad on these matters, especially with our colleagues in the CIS, the heads of their financial intelligence agencies, and the Eurasian Working Group (modelled on FATF). We are working with the BRICS countries too, and we just had a meeting with representatives of the working groups from Syria, Iraq, Iran and Russia. We have approved a common approach, which has enabled us, using the FATF platform, to launch our methodology for resolving these issues. On the question of international terrorist centres and their cells, together with the FSB, we have identified 42 such cells on Russian territory alone. Our cooperation with our colleagues abroad has helped to identify around another 30 cells in other countries».
Chikhanchin stressed: «All in all, as far as the terrorists themselves go, 1,500 people were officially and publicly listed as terrorists last year, and more than 3,500 accounts were frozen. We have cases too regarding businesses that are helping terrorists. We are investigating both Russian and foreign companies in this regard. We are working together with Malta and France. We also have some work with Turkey underway at present. We are investigating international terrorist centres abroad. We are working very closely with our French partners right now».
He added: «Our methods have produced the best results in the CIS region. Kyrgyzstan has worked hard in this area and has identified around 500 people with connections to ISIS. Dozens of criminal cases have been opened. We are currently working on several cases with the FSB [Federal Security Service] and Kyrgyzstan. These cases involve people who ended up on Russian soil. We are working very closely together in this area. One issue that is cause for serious concern, and on which we are also working together with the FSB and government officials, is that ads appealing for money for the ‘war against the infidels’ appear on social networks and people here in Russia respond to them and send money. This is a reality, sadly, and people use electronic wallets to transfer funds. What is their motive? Each individual no doubt has his or her own motive, and this is something for us to elucidate. We have already identified most of these people, several dozen in total. We are continuing this work».
