The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international organisation that coordinates global efforts to crack down on money laundering and terrorism financing, said Friday it had removed Malta from its watchlist of countries subject to increased monitoring.
Placed on watch in 2021, Malta is coming off the list after carrying out an “action plan which it has now completed” leaving it “better placed to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing”, Marcus Pleyer, president of the FATF, said after a four-day meeting of the organisation in Berlin.
Malta had especially made progress in the detection of inaccurate company ownership information and “the pursuit of tax-based money laundering cases utilising financial intelligence”, the FATF said in a statement.
Malta, which has for years fought accusations of being a tax haven, was dealt another reputational blow last year when it was added to the list.
In 2017, more than a dozen European media organisations in an investigation dubbed the “Malta Files” accused the country of being a “pirate base for tax avoidance inside the EU” — allegations Malta denied.
Gibraltar, meanwhile, was added to the grey list over what Pleyer described as “tragic deficiencies”.
“Gibraltar needs to take a number of steps including focusing on gatekeepers to the financial system, in particular gambling operators and lawyers,” he said.
The British overseas territory will need to show progress by “demonstrating that it is more actively and successfully pursuing final confiscation judgements, through criminal or civil proceedings based on financial investigations”, the FATF statement said.
