Sri Lanka’s overall money laundering and terrorism financing risk has been rated as “medium” as per the national assessment done by the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

This was revealed by the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) via the publication of the sanitized report of the 2021/2022 National risk Assessment on Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing.

The CBSL published the sanitized report of the 2021/22 National Risk Assessment on Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing which was developed based on the assessment conducted by its Financial Intelligence, together with public and private sector stakeholders. 

The National Risk Assessment identified drug trafficking, bribery and corruption, customs related offences including laundering of trade-based proceeds, as the most prevalent predicate offences, where the money laundering threat was rated as medium high.  

Fraud, robbery, environmental and natural resource crimes were reported to have a medium level money laundering threat.

Human smuggling or trafficking, tax offences, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing related unlawful activities were assessed as having a medium low money laundering threat while lower threat was observed for counterfeiting of currency. 

Further, the assessment identified the money laundering risk of the financial and designated non-financial businesses and professions.

Accordingly in the Informal Money Remitting sector the risk is high. 

In the Real Estate sector, Banking sector and Finance Companies, the risk is medium high.

Money Value Transfer Services Providers, Stockbrokers, Primary Dealers, Casinos, Dealers in Precious Metals and Stones, Notaries and Lawyers were reported to have a medium-level threat.

Meanwhile, Accountants, Trust and Company Service Providers and Insurance service providers were observed to have a medium low-level threat of money laundering.

The Finance Intelligence Unit said, a strong political commitment is critical to address the national Anti- Money Laundering and Counter Financial Terrorism plan.

It was also stated that, by better understanding the current risk environment, respective stakeholders, from now onwards can effectively allocate more resources to the high-risk areas to safeguard the integrity of Sri Lanka’s financial system.