Dubai and Gibraltar added to the EU's list of high risk third countries

The list of high risk third countries that the EU has designated now includes Dubai and Gibraltar.

The official designations were announced on March 16 by the European Commission. The announcement comes after the Financial Action Task Force had placed Gibraltar and the United Arab Emirates on its "grey list" (FATF).

The list identified high-risk third-party countries with strategic shortcomings in their anti-money laundering and counter-terror financing regimes.

Dubai is frantically seeking to remove it from the FATF watchlist, but it might take longer than anticipated given how much Russian money is currently flooding the Emirates.

On March 16, Mozambique was also added to the list.

The goal, according to the European Commission, is to identify jurisdictions with serious weaknesses in their national AML/CFT regimes that endanger the Union's financial system. These jurisdictions are listed in delegated actions that the Commission adopts.

The Commission uses the FATF lists as a starting point and conducts an autonomous assessment of additional countries.

By fLEXI tEAM