Strasbourg, 1 April 2008 MONEYVAL (2008) 02 EUROPEAN COMMITTEE ON CRIME PROBLEMS (CDPC) COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS ON THE EVALUATION OF ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING MEASURES AND THE FINANCING OF TERRORISM (MONEYVAL) THIRD ROUND DETAILED ASSESSMENT REPORT ON BULGARIA 1 ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING AND COMBATING THE FINANCING OF TERRORISM Memorandum Prepared by the Secretariat Directorate General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs (DG-HL) 1 Adopted by MONEYVAL at its 26 th Plenary Session (Strasbourg 31 March œ 4 April 2008). All rights reserved. Reproduction is authorised, provided the source is acknowledged, save where otherwise stated. For any use for commercial purposes, no part of this publication may be translated, reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic (CD-Rom, Internet, etc) or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the MONEYVAL Secretariat, Directorate General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs, Council of Europe (F-67075 Strasbourg or [email protected]). 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. PREFACE................................................................................................................................................... 7 II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY..................................................................................................................... 8 III. MUTUAL EVALUATION REPORT .................................................................................................... 16 1 GENERAL........................................................................................................................................ 16 1.1 General information on Bulgaria .............................................................................................. 16 1.2 General Situation of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism...................................... 24 1.3 Overview of the Financial Sector and Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions (DNFBP). ........................................................................................................................... 26 1.4 Overview of commercial laws and mechanisms governing legal persons and arrangements... 32 1.5 Overview of strategy to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.............................. 35 2 LEGAL SYSTEM AND RELATED INSTITUTIONAL MEASURES ...................................... 47 2.1 Criminalisation of money laundering (R.1 and 2) .................................................................... 47 2.2 Criminalisation of terrorist financing (SR II)............................................................................ 53 2.3 Confiscation, freezing and seizing of proceeds of crime (R.3)................................................. 55 2.4 Freezing of funds used for terrorist financing (SR.III) ............................................................. 61 2.5 The Financial Intelligence Unit and its functions (R.26, 30 and 32) ........................................ 66 2.6 Law enforcement, prosecution and other competent authorities œ the framework for the investigation and prosecution of offences, and for confiscation and freezing (R.27 and 28)................ 74 2.7 Cross Border Declaration or Disclosure (SR IX)...................................................................... 84 3 PREVENTIVE MEASURES - FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS................................................... 88 3.1 Risk of money laundering / financing of terrorism:.................................................................. 88 3.2 Customer due diligence, including enhanced or reduced measures (R.5 to R.8).................... 88 3.3 Third Parties and introduced business (Recommendation 9).................................................. 103 3.4 Financial institution secrecy or confidentiality (R.4).............................................................. 103 3.5 Record keeping and wire transfer rules (R.10 and SR. VII) ................................................... 105 3.6 Monitoring of transactions and relationships (R.11 and 21)................................................... 108 3.7 Suspicious transaction reports and other reporting (Recommendations 13, 14, 19, 25 and SR.IV) 111 3.8 Internal controls, compliance, audit and foreign branches (R.15 and 22)............................... 116 3.9 Shell banks (Recommendation 18) ......................................................................................... 120 3.10 The supervisory and oversight system - competent authorities and SROs / Role, functions, duties and powers (including sanctions) (R. 23, 29, 17 and 25).......................................................... 121 3.11 Money or value transfer services (SR.VI)............................................................................... 132 4 PREVENTIVE MEASURES œ DESIGNATED NON FINANCIAL BUSINESSES AND PROFESSIONS ..................................................................................................................................... 134 4.1 Customer due diligence and record-keeping (R.12) ............................................................... 135 4.2 Suspicious transaction reporting (R. 16)................................................................................. 139 4.3 Regulation, supervision and monitoring (R. 24-25)................................................................ 141 4.4 Other non-financial businesses and professions/ Modern secure transaction techniques (R.20) /Sanctions (R.17) ...................................................................................................................... 143 5 LEGAL PERSONS AND ARRANGEMENTS AND NON-PROFIT ORGANISATIONS..... 145 5.1 Legal persons œ Access to beneficial ownership and control information (R.33) .................. 145 5.2 Legal Arrangements œ Access to beneficial ownership and control information ................... 147 5.3 Non-profit organisations (SR VIII)......................................................................................... 147 6 NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION ....................................................... 152 6.1 National co-operation and co-ordination (R. 31) .................................................................... 152 6.2 The Conventions and United Nations Special Resolutions (R. 35 and SR.I) ......................... 154 6.3 Mutual legal assistance (R.32, 36-38, SR.V).......................................................................... 156 3 6.4 Extradition (R. 37 and 39, SR.V)............................................................................................ 165 6.5 Other Forms of International Co-operation (R. 40 and SR.V)................................................ 168 7 Other issues..................................................................................................................................... 170 7.1 Resources and Statistics.......................................................................................................... 170 IV. TABLES ............................................................................................................................................... 171 8 Table 1. Ratings of Compliance with FATF Recommendations............................................... 171 9 Table 2: Recommended Action Plan to improve the AML/CFT system................................... 179 10 Table 3: Authorities‘ Response to the Evaluation (if necessary)............................................ 185 V. LIST OF ANNEXES ............................................................................................................................. 186 4 LIST OF ACRONYMS USED Institutions CPOC - Chief Prosecutors Office of Cassation BNB - Bulgarian National Bank CEPACA - Commission for establishing of property, acquired from criminal activity FSC œ Financial Supervision Commission SCG œ State Commission on Gambling MF - Ministry of Finance MoI œ Ministry of Interior MJ œ Ministry of Justice MFA œ Ministry of Foreign Affairs NCA - National Customs Agency NRA œ National Revenue Agency FIA œ Financial Intelligence Agency Registry Agency to the MJ GDBOP (Bulgarian acronym) - Chief Directorate for Combating Organised Crime of MoI NPOs - Non-profit Organisations BAEGG - Bulgarian Association on Entertainment and Gambling Games ACB - Association of Commercial Banks USAID œ United States Agency for International Development FSIP - Financial Sector Integrity Project NSS œ National Security Service NIS œ National Investigation Service Legislation AML/CFT œ Anti Money Laundering /Counteracting Financing of Terrorism LMML œ Law on Measures against Money Laundering RILMML œ Rules on the Implementation of LMML ORFIA - Organic Regulations of Financial Intelligence Agency LMTF œ Law on Measures against Terrorist Financing TIPC - Tax-Insurance Procedure Code PC or CC -Penal Code / Criminal Code PPC or (CPC) - Penal Procedure Code /Criminal Procedure Code LFPC or (LCPACAFS ) - Law on Forfeiture of Proceeds of Crime /Law for the Confiscation of Property Acquired from Criminal Activities in Favour of the State Law on Administrative Violations and Sanctions Law on Extradition and the European Arrest Warrant Law on issuing, adoption and implementation of the decisions for securing property or evidence, issued by the EU Member States LMoI - Law on the Ministry of Interior RILMoI - Regulation for Implementation of the Law on the Ministry of the Interior BNBA - Bulgarian National Bank