In 2018, more than 1,000 suspicious money laundering and terrorist financing reports were received by the Financial Intelligence Processing Unit. 15 cases were forwarded to the public prosecutor. The latter has liquidated 70% of money laundering investigations opened since 2012 and the courts have pronounced 21 judgments.

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Money laundering: sharp increase in suspicious transaction reports and judgments
In 2018, more than 1,000 suspicious money laundering and terrorist financing reports were received by the Financial Intelligence Processing Unit. 15 cases were forwarded to the public prosecutor. The latter has liquidated 70% of money laundering investigations opened since 2012 and the courts have pronounced 21 judgments.

Money laundering: sharp increase in suspicious transaction reports and judgments
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On November 20, 2019 at 1:20 p.m.
Modified on November 20, 2019 at 2:34 PM
The fight against money laundering (ML) and the financing of terrorism (FT) is intensifying in Morocco, pending the implementation of a new strategy in this area.

The assessment of ML/FT risks and the national countermeasures was completed in 2018 with international partners (FATF, World Bank) and the upgrading of the legislative and procedural framework as well as the national mechanism continues.

But already, there is a real improvement in the operational performance of the bodies in charge of detecting and processing ML/FT cases, mainly the Financial Intelligence Processing Unit (UTRF) and the Public Prosecutor's Office. There is also a growing commitment from entities subject to suspicious transaction reports.

Banks increasingly vigilant
The president of the UTRF, Jawhar Nfissi, presented Tuesday, November 19 the 2018 activity report to the head of government to which this unit reports. The latter is a kind of national coordinator in which several departments are represented).

The unit has several strategic and operational responsibilities, including the processing of information relating to suspected acts related to ML/FT and the transmission to the Public Prosecutor's Office of cases likely to constitute an infringement of the law.

According to the report, 2018 was an exceptional year in terms of the number of suspicious transaction reports (STRs) received from reporting entities. For the first time, the thousand threshold was exceeded: 1,088 DS, up 50% compared to 2017. Of this total, only 29 relate to the financing of terrorism, all the rest relate to money laundering.

The financial sector was the source of almost all of the DS received by the UTRF last year: 1,085 declarations. Since inception the Unit has received 3,432 SDs from the financial sector.

31 obliged entities made declarations, including 16 banks (including a participating bank), 6 payment establishments, 3 insurance and reinsurance companies, 3 consumer credit companies, a means of payment management company, an association micro-credit and a brokerage firm.

Banks were the source of more than 70% of the DS sent by the financial sector to the UTRF

This sector, in turn, received more than 7,500 requests for information from the Unit, up 92%, due to the increase in DS.

Here is the detail of the requests for information by type:

(Source: 2018 UTRF report)

Non-financial declarants little mobilized
For their part, non-financial taxable persons (lawyers, notaries, casinos, real estate agents, etc.) only issued 3 declarations, “which indicates the low capacity of this sector to carry out DS). These 3 statements are all related to money laundering cases and come from 2 casino lawyers.

In addition, the UTRF received 8 spontaneous communications compared to 6 last year. The main issuers over the last three years are the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Foreign Exchange Office. Following these communications, the Unit sent 511 requests for information to partners, more than half of them to OMPIC.

After processing all these DS and spontaneous communications, the UTRF transmitted 15 files to the public prosecutor, including 12 relating to money laundering and 3 to the financing of terrorism. Since its creation, the Unit has referred 107 cases to the prosecution.

The public prosecutor's office is the other essential link in the fight against money laundering.

Public Ministry: several measures taken to speed up investigations and judgments
In his 2018 activity report, he explains that until 2017, he faced several difficulties in carrying out his investigations in the context of these cases: involvement of people established outside Morocco, concentration of cases at the BNPJ hence the delay in carrying out the surveys...

In 2018, a series of measures were taken:

- Involvement of the regional judicial police brigades to relieve the national brigade,

- Incitement of the judicial police to liquidate the investigations relating to old files,

- Abandonment of the preparatory investigation stage and direct passage to the judgment phase when the results of the preliminary investigation are sufficient,

- Recourse to the notifications of the parties by all permitted means,

- Acceleration of international cooperation procedures,

- Monthly statistical monitoring of business,

- …

The results were not long in coming. All investigations opened between 2010 and 2015 have been liquidated. For 2016 and 2017, the number of investigations opened has been reduced from 28 to 5 and 47 to 16, respectively. reduction of more than 70%.

This acceleration has enabled the courts to try a significant number of cases: 21 in 2018 against only 8 during a period of 10 years before the measures taken by the public prosecutor.

(Source: 2018 Public Ministry report)