12 April 2002
The UK Government is fully committed to freezing the assets of terrorists and has a range of powers enabling it to do so. The UK has fully met the commitments set out in the November 2001 IMFC Communiqué.
1. The UK has fully implemented:
2. Acting under the Terrorism (UN Measures) Order 2001 and the Al-Qa’ida and Taliban (UN Measures) Order 2002, the UK has frozen the assets of over 100 organisations and over 200 individuals. A complete list of all those listed can be found at the Bank of England website.
3. The recently introduced Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 provides:
UK legislation is available at HMSO's web site.
4. The UK took effective action to freeze funds soon after UNSCRs 1267 and 1333 were adopted. Before 11 September, some $90 million of Taliban assets had been frozen; since 11 September some $10 million has been frozen. Efforts are now underway to return the bulk of these assets – around $85million - to the new legitimate Government in Kabul. Some $15million remains frozen.
5. A founder member of the Egmont Group, the UK established an Economic Crime Unit within its National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) in 1992. A multi-agency Terrorist Finance Team was set up in NCIS in November 2001. NCIS hosts the Egmont Secretariat.
6. The UK continues to support the provision of technical assistance and capacity building in a number of countries, funding programmes and initiatives designed to address a range of anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing and other counter terrorism issues. This funding is provided both bilaterally, and through contributions to multi-lateral initiatives.
7. UK banks and financial institutions have cooperated fully, constructively and with dedication in seeking out sources of terrorist funding.
8. The UK has introduced a new domestic regulatory regime to ensure that money laundering regulations are implemented effectively by bureaux de change and money transmitters.
9. The UK plays a significant role in FATF and already complies with the great majority of the Special 8 FATF Recommendations, and will soon be fully compliant following the passage of new regulations dealing with wire transfers by money remitters. The UK strongly supports international cooperation, enhanced mutual understanding and effective means of tackling terrorist financing.
10. UK Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies are fully committed to act in parallel with the UK in combating terrorist financing. They apply the UN Resolutions and are working to meet the Special 8 FATF Recommendations.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) issued 8 Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing on 30 October 2001. All FATF members, including the UK, are committed to implementing those Recommendations. The FATF is assessing compliance, and issued a questionnaire to all members before Christmas, with a follow-up in February 2001. Non-FATF members were asked to engage in the assessment process on a similar basis to FATF members, and the questionnaire has been issued to non-members with a request that it be completed by 1 May 2002. For further details visit the Financial Action Task Force website.
The UK is in substantial compliance with all 8 Special Recommendations, and urges all countries to take steps to meet them.
The UK Responses to the FATF questionnaires are available below in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer you can download the software free of charge from the Adobe website.
For alternative ways to read PDF documents and further information on website accessibility visit the HM Treasury accessibility page.