Staff Reporter
Islamabad
The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance on Tuesday approved the Anti-Money Laundering (Amendment) Bill, 2019, which prescribes punishments for offenders and outlines mechanisms for authorities to deal with such crimes in an effort to fulfil the Financial Action Task Force’s requirements on curbing money laundering. According to the approved Bill, violators of the law against money laundering will be subject to a prison sentence of up to 10 years instead of the previous two years, along with a fine of Rs5 million, up from the previous figure of Rs1m.
Furthermore, the investigating officer shall be authorised remand of the person for a period of 180 days, up from the previous 90 days, and shall not need to obtain arrest warrants from the court. The offender’s assets will also be seized by authorities.
A session of the committee was held today in the Parliament House, Islamabad under the chairmanship of Asad Umar. Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Director General Bashir Memon, while giving a briefing to the committee, had called for the above-mentioned amendments to be made in the Bill.
