The Egmont Group released its Public Summary report on the “Abuse of Virtual Assets for Terrorist Financing Purposes’’. Virtual Assets abused in terrorism financing is a current focal point of discussions. As per the Egmont group, understanding trends in emerging technologies will enable the identification of potential vulnerabilities associated with new technologies, particularly virtual assets.

A significant event took place as delegates from Angola, representing various key authorities, visited FIU Mauritius to offer their expertise and support in the post Mutual Evaluation implementation process. The visit aimed to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing between the two nations, particularly in the field of financial intelligence and compliance

In recent years, cyber- enabled fraud is a major transnational organized crime that has grown significantly. On 9th November 2023, the FATF published a report on ‘Illicit Financial Flows from Cyber-enabled Fraud’ that identifies risk indicators and useful anti-fraud requirements and controls, that may help public and private sector entities detect and prevent cyber enabled fraud and related money laundering

In 16 November 2023, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) published amendments to the FATF Recommendations which will provide law enforcement, financial intelligence units, prosecutors, other asset recovery practitioners and competent authorities with a more robust toolkit to target and confiscate criminal assets

On 16th November 2023, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has updated its Best Practices to reflect the amendments to Recommendation 8 and to help countries, the non-profit sector and financial institutions understand how to effectively protect relevant NPOs from abuse for terrorist financing, without unduly disrupting or discouraging legitimate NPO activities

On 16th November 2023, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) amended Recommendation 8 and its Interpretative Note to address the misapplication and misinterpretation of Recommendation 8, that had led countries to apply disproportionate measures on Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs)

On 16th November 2023, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) published a detailed report of the role and impact of Asset Recovery Interagency Networks (ARINs)

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has published a report in October 2023 which discusses the significant international market of crowdfunding, its growth, and its potential for exploitation by terrorist actors. Crowdfunding is an innovative fundraising solution used for legitimate projects but can be abused for terrorist financing. The FATF conducted research showing that terrorist groups like ISIL, Al-Qaeda, and ethnically/racially motivated terrorists use crowdfunding to raise funds for their activities

As evidenced in the mutual evaluation findings of the FSRBs, Sub Sahara African countries scored lower-level effectiveness in the field of AML/CFT/CPF. As of 24th February 2023, among the 23 jurisdictions under FATF’s increased monitoring (commonly known as grey list), 10 (about 43.48%) were African countries and 7 (30.43%) are from the ESCAY (Eastern, Central and Southern Africa and Yemen) region