The newly formed Financial Monitoring Committee in Russia is moving forward in its drive to remove Russia from a blacklist of countries soft on money laundering. "The Moscow Times" on 3 April reported that the committee announced on 2 April that it is investigating thousands of suspicious transactions and compiling its own list of countries suspected of harboring Russian money. "We are preparing a strategic plan to get Russia off of the blacklist," said the task force's head, First Deputy Finance Minister Viktor Zubkov, Interfax reported. "We will present it to the FATF [Financial Action Task Force, which is based in Paris] at the end of May, and at the FATF session in June, I will report on what Russia has done to be removed from the blacklist."

(RFE/RL 11.iv.02)