Dig deeper – Outsmarting the proliferation financer
Service providers can contribute to the countering of the financing of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in several ways, one of which is by conducting a sound screening of the sanction lists. These sanction lists pertain to North Korea and Iran in particular. When conducting a screening, it is important to keep in mind that the individuals listed on those sanction lists also know that. This is the same for those individuals that are in control of, for instance, entities and vessels that are listed on sanction lists. In order to avoid detection, proliferation financers will make sure to conceal their identity by, for instance, hide behind legal entities. Hence, it is unlikely that a simple one-on-one screening of names vis-à-vis sanction lists will result in a successful hit. Therefore, it is important that service providers are aware of proliferation financing risks and the mitigation measures that can be implemented in order to detect and outsmart the proliferation financer (see the FATF Guidance on Proliferation Financing Risk Assessment and Mitigation:
Information on sanction list screening and reporting is available on the website of the FIU-Aruba: https://www.fiu-aruba.com/category/sanctions/
