Council of Europe calls for “more explicit and detailed provisions” to prevent certain crimes
The Council of Europe asked Spain this Wednesday for “more explicit and detailed provisions” for the control of banking operations and thus prevent them from serving to commit crimes such as money laundering, terrorist financing, trafficking in immigrants, or sexual exploitation.
This is the only recommendation that its Committee of the Convention on the Fight against Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing makes to Spain, in a report that analyzes two articles of the treaty, 7 (2c) and 19 (1), on the legislation in force to supervise banking operations.
The first article provides for the monitoring, for a specified period of time, of the operations, carried out through one or more identified accounts. The second refers to control measures at the request of another State party.
Of the 34 States in which the so-called Warsaw Convention is in force, the same recommendation that Spain is given to France, Turkey, Denmark, and Monaco for “not having enough legislative measures in force” to apply the articles.
These five countries are invited to adopt legislative or other provisions necessary to supervise the banking operations that are carried out through one or more identified accounts.
They do, in general terms, countries like Ukraine, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Sweden. Four other States (Germany, Russia, Greece, and Slovakia) ratified the Convention with the reservation not to apply the first of the articles examined.
In the case of Spain, the rapporteurs of the report “have doubts” about whether the first article applies and, regarding the second, they point out that “it seems that this provision depends on the central administration to control banking operations.”
They add that “it appears that Spain does not have an explicit provision in force on the supervision of banking operations.” And they point out that in the absence of relevant jurisprudence, “the speakers cannot conclude that article 7 (2c) applies.”
The Council of Europe body emphasizes in its recommendation that the supervision of operations should apply to the 17 crimes that are listed in the annex to the convention, including those related to organized criminal groups, terrorist financing, trafficking in immigrants, or exploitation sexual.
