FATF Denounces Qatar for Not Taking Actions against VASPs

The global money-laundering and terrorist-financing watchdog denounced Qatar for exerting little effort in enforcing its own regulations prohibiting virtual asset service providers (VASPs), which were announced four years ago.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) called on Qatar to effectively combat new forms of criminal activity such as sanctioning virtual asset service providers, according to Cointelegraph. It pointed out that Qatar needs more understanding that there are more complex forms of money laundering and terrorism financing.

“Qatar has made substantive improvements to its system to combat money laundering and terrorism financing and its technical compliance with FATF requirements is very strong. However, Qatar needs to make some major improvements, in its criminal justice response to terrorist financing,” FATF said in its report.

The global watchdog urged Qatar to improve its money-laundering investigations to identify the role Qatar may play in complex or professional schemes because no formal sanctions have been applied on a natural or legal person for contravening the prohibition.

The report also pointed out that no penalties were imposed against an unlicensed crypto provider, which was allegedly found operating in the country.

Since December 2019, the Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority (QFCRA) prohibits VASPs from operating in its territories, so cryptocurrencies transactions are not allowed in Qatar. They are prohibited from engaging in transactions involving virtual assets, however, the Gulf country is exploring potential case uses for the central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).