On February 23, 2024, FATF added Kenya and Namibia to its “grey list” of countries, bringing the total to 25 nations. This list highlights deficiencies in countering financial crimes like money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing.
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Kenya: Added due to inadequate terrorist financing risk assessments, weak supervision of financial institutions, lack of oversight for virtual asset service providers, inconsistent suspicious transaction reporting, and weak implementation of targeted financial sanctions.
Namibia: Added due to deficiencies in anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing supervision, including limited use of enhanced due diligence, inconsistent adherence to targeted financial sanctions, gaps in beneficial ownership information filing, and insufficient resources and training for strategic analysis.
Four countries were removed from the list:
• Barbados: Strengthened regulatory framework with effective risk-based supervision, prevention of illicit entity activities, and improved access to beneficial ownership data.
• Gibraltar: Enhanced AML/CFT framework with dissuasive sanctions for breaches, pursuit of confiscation judgments, especially in non-bank financial sectors.
• Uganda: Improved AML/CFT regime with a national strategy, enhanced mutual legal assistance, risk-based supervision, aligned investigations with risk profiles, and capacity building in terrorist financing.
• United Arab Emirates: Strengthened AML/CFT regime by increasing mutual legal assistance requests, enhancing supervisor understanding of risks, imposing effective sanctions, improving suspicious transaction reporting, understanding risks in legal persons’ abuse, and enhancing resources for investigations and prosecutions.
No changes were made to the blacklisted countries: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Iran, and Myanmar.
FATF Grey List (as of February 23, 2024): Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Croatia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Jamaica, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Philippines, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Türkiye (Turkey), Vietnam, Yemen.
