Scanner on casinos for money laundering, terror funding
TNN 25 December 2009, 05:55am IST

PANAJI: To prevent money laundering and financing of terrorist
activities, the Goa government has made it mandatory for casino owners
to put in place a system to check customer identity and report
transactions of over Rs 10 lakhs or any 'suspicious' transaction to
the Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-IND).

The guidelines, notified by the home department on December 17 under
the Prevention of Money Laundering Rules, 2005, will have to be
complied with by all casinos registered under the Goa, Daman and Diu
Public Gambling Act, 1976.

Money laundering involves disguising financial assets so that they can
be used without detection of the illegal activity that produced them.
There is no one single method of laundering money. Methods can range
from the purchase and resale of a luxury item (eg. cars or jewellery)
to passing money through a complex web of legitimate businesses and
"shell" companies.

Now with the government's notification, each registered casino must be
able to satisfy itself that the measures taken by it are adequate,
appropriate and follow the spirit of the requirements as enshrined in
Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA).

According to section 12 of PMLA, every banking company, financial
institution and intermediary has obligations to verify the identity of
its clients, maintain certain records and furnish certain information
to the director, FIU-IND.

PMLA rules require appointment of a person as principal officer by
each registered casino and inform his particulars to FIU-IND. He/she
would act as a central reference point of the casino for the purpose
of interaction with FIU-IND. PMLA rules also require casinos to verify
identity of their clients. In case of account-based relationship,
verification of identity is required in all cases, but in other cases
verification is required only for customers who undertake transactions
of an amount equal to or more than Rs 50,000, whether conducted as a
single transaction or several transactions that appear to be
connected.

Every registered casino must report all cash transactions of more than
Rs 10 lakh or its equivalent in foreign currency to FIU-IND. All
series of cash transactions integrally connected to each other which
have been valued below Rs 10 lakhs or its equivalent in foreign
currency where such series of transactions take place within one
calendar month also have to be reported.

The casinos will have to ensure that all customer and transaction
records are available on a timely basis to the competent investigating
authorities.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/Scanner-on-casinos-for-money-laundering-terror-funding/articleshow/5376520.cms

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