OFFICE FOR MONEY LAUNDERING PREVENTION PRESENTS ITS ACTIVITIES

ZAGREB, May 28 (Hina) - In the past five years the Zagreb-based office for the prevention of money laundering opened 840 cases of suspicions transactions for the further processing. Of this figure, 170 cases have been sent to competent state bodies and foreign offices to treat them in further procedure, Croatian Finance Minister Mato Crkvenac said on Wednesday. #L# At the presentation of the office's activities, the minister said reports referred to cases covering 1.5 billion kuna which had elements of possible money laundering, the financing of terrorism and other kinds of murky dealings. In the last 18 months there were 70 reports on such cases which included almost 600 million kuna. In compliance with Croatia's international commitments, under UN Security Council Resolution 1373 on the prevention of the financing of terrorism, the Zagreb office checked financial transactions of over 900 individuals and many legal entities and suggested the blocking of the funds in two cases. The latter refers to the freezing of accounts of persons who are not Croatian nationals, the office's head Ivica Maros said. Maros said that an investigating judge had decided to freeze the accounts indefinitely, but he declined to reveal the names of those persons or of the banks. According to Maros, the functioning of the Croatian office is important in light of the fact that countries in transition are very much exposed to activities of international financial Mafia that uses the current economic situation in such countries to launder illegally obtained money. Therefore, international cooperation with channels for exchange of data is necessary in bids to counter this problem. Maros said the world practice had shown that only two percent of cases of laundered money could be proved, and Croatia had to date had one final ruling in the money laundering processes, which was confirmed by the national Supreme Court. (EUR1 = 7.51 kuna) (hina ms sb