The draft of China's first anti-money laundering law will be
submitted to the National People's Congress (NPC),
the country's top legislature, for review this year.
The announcement was made in a report issued by the People's
Bank of China (PBC) on
Tuesday. According to the report, lawmakers are drafting the law
with the assistance of 17 government departments including the
bank, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of
Finance.
An official with PBC, China's central bank, said the law will
probably extend the scope of application into other major areas of
"upstream crimes" that generally involve the sources of money being
laundered.
The existing Criminal Law only applies to money laundering
through drug trafficking, organized crime, terrorism and
smuggling.
The new law is likely to include embezzlement and bribery.
The report also said the PBC is drafting regulations to tackle
money laundering in the securities and insurance industries.
A total of 50 money laundering cases, involving up to US$517
million, were jointly investigated by the police, the central bank
and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange?last
year.
In April 2004, China established an anti-money laundering
monitoring analysis center to collect, analyze and supply
information on money laundering activities in the country.
By the end of 2004, the center had received a total of 10,740
reports of illicit monetary transactions.
(China Daily July 14, 2005)