MOU targets money laundering, terrorist financing

Pact to support probes into organized crime, tax evasion, drug trafficking

Korea Financial Intelligence Unit Director Lee Hyung-joo (left) poses for a photo with Tajikistan National Bank Governor Tolibzoda Firdavs after signing an MOU on financial intelligence sharing with the National Bank of Tajikistan's Financial Monitoring Department at Government Complex Seoul on Thursday. [Financial Services Commission]
Korea Financial Intelligence Unit Director Lee Hyung-joo (left) poses for a photo with Tajikistan National Bank Governor Tolibzoda Firdavs after signing an MOU on financial intelligence sharing with the National Bank of Tajikistan's Financial Monitoring Department at Government Complex Seoul on Thursday. [Financial Services Commission]

South Korea's Korea Financial Intelligence Unit has established a cooperation framework with Tajikistan's financial authorities to exchange suspicious transaction data, aiming to jointly counter cross-border illicit financial flows including money laundering and terrorist financing.

KoFIU, which operates under the Financial Services Commission, signed an MOU with the Financial Monitoring Department of the National Bank of Tajikistan at Government Complex Seoul on Thursday, the agency announced Friday. The agreement was pursued on the sidelines of the Korea-Central Asia summit.

Under the MOU, the two agencies plan to exchange financial intelligence on suspicious fund flows and cooperate in supporting investigations and indictments related to money laundering offenses, including international organized crime, tax evasion and drug trafficking.

KoFIU Director Lee Hyung-joo met with Tajikistan National Bank Governor Tolibzoda Firdavs and discussed the growing spread of transnational organized crime beyond Southeast and Northeast Asia to the rest of the world. Lee said international cooperation is particularly critical as criminal organizations rapidly move and conceal illicit funds through various means, including virtual assets, to evade financial tracking.

South Korea has been actively tracing international organized crime and criminal proceeds in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Both sides said the new information-sharing framework would help more effectively identify and analyze suspicious fund flows, given the risk that criminal organizations could shift their base of operations to Central Asia — a so-called balloon effect — as pressure mounts in other regions.

The Tajikistan delegation outlined its country's financial industry and growth conditions, and requested expanded financial cooperation, including the entry of South Korean financial firms into the local market.

"Strengthening financial cooperation between the two countries must be underpinned by the stability of both nations' financial systems," Lee said. "A robust anti-money laundering framework can serve as an important foundation for that financial stability."

Building on the MOU, KoFIU plans to step up bilateral financial intelligence exchanges, support investigations and indictments related to money laundering, and expand international anti-money laundering cooperation with Central Asia and beyond.

Meanwhile, the government is preparing for the Financial Action Task Force's fifth mutual evaluation in 2028. The FATF mutual evaluation is an international assessment that reviews countries' frameworks for preventing money laundering and terrorist financing.


rim@heraldcorp.com