Turkey’s fight against money and terrorist financing is continuing with determination, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek told government-run Anadolu Agency, following the general assembly meeting of Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
The necessary steps will be taken to ensure that Turkey gets out of the grey list process, he also said.
In 2021 the FATF placed Turkey on its “grey list”. The international watchdog concluded that Turkey was failing to counter both money laundering and terrorist financing.
It also said that Turkey needed to address “serious issues of supervision” in its banking and real estate sectors, and with gold and precious stones dealers.
In November 2008 Turkey’s Erdogan administration introduced the first of its so-called “wealth amnesty laws”. The legislation is still in effect. Simply, no one asks “Where did you find it?” when someone brings cash or gold into Turkey.
“Today, if someone comes to the border and claims to have brought €30mn, all they have to do is fill out a form for the public prosecutor and the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK),” Nedim Turkmen of Galatasaray University said.
In 2022 unidentified FX inflows to Turkey under the net errors and omissions account of its Balance of Payments (BoP) hit a record $27bn.
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