On June 23, 2023, the international financial crime watchdog FATF added Croatia, Cameroon, and Vietnam to its “grey list” of countries. With these additions, the grey list now comprises 26 member countries. However, no country has been removed from the list during this high-level session of FATF and FATF-style regional bodies. The countries on the grey list have strategic deficiencies in countering money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing.
 
Currently, Croatia is the only EU country included in the grey list. Croatia needs to enhance its capability to detect, investigate, and prosecute various types of money laundering (ML), including ML related to foreign predicate offenses and the misuse of legal entities.
 
Vietnam has been added to the grey list due to the risk of proliferating weapons of mass destruction. Vietnam maintains close ties with North Korea, a nation actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program despite widespread global condemnation and international sanctions. As part of its commitment, Vietnam has agreed to actively prevent the evasion of sanctions against individuals or entities involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, who face international restrictions.
 
Although Cameroon has made progress on some of the recommended actions by the Mutual Evaluation Reports (MER) through increased resources for the FIU and capacity-building of investigation authorities and judicial bodies to effectively handle ML/TF cases, there is still much work to be done in terms of cooperation and coordination between competent authorities and risk-based supervision, among other areas.
 
The black list countries, which include the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Iran, and Myanmar, remain unchanged.