Agency (later, the Financial Services Agency) as the FIU of Japan, where money laundering information shall be collected, arranged and analyzed to be disseminated to investigative authorities etc.

## 3 Enforcement of "the Act on Punishment of Financing of Offences of Public Intimidation" and "Customer Identification Act", and the Revision of "Act on Punishment of Organized Crimes"

As a major development after the terrorist attacks in US, the "Act on the Punishment of Financing of Offences of Public Intimidation" was adopted (enforced in July 2002) as a domestic law to implement "the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism". At the same time as the adoption of "the Act on Punishment of Financing Offences of Public Intimidation", the "Act on Punishment of Organized Crimes" was partly revised, so that the terrorist financing offence was included into predicate offences. Moreover, terrorist funds were stipulated as criminal proceeds, so financial institution etc. shall report suspicious transactions pertaining to assets suspected of terrorist financing. Also, to implement the customer identification regime required under the said Convention and the FATF recommendations, "the Law on Customer Identification by Financial Institutions etc." was adopted (enforced in Jan. 2003).

Because of frequent abuse of bank accounts under other or fictitious names for offences such as "Furikome" Fraud, the Law on Customer Identification by Financial Institutions etc. was revised in Dec. 2004 as "the Act on Confirmation of Customers Identification by Financial Institution etc. and Prevention of Unauthorized Use of Deposit Account etc." (hereinafter referred as "the Customer Identification Act") that provides sanctions to selling and buying of passbooks etc. soliciting, or the like.

## 4 Enforcement of "the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds"

Based on the fact that the FATF re-revised "The 40 Recommendations" in 2003 to extend the scope of business operators required to implement customer identification etc. to operators other than financial institutions, "the Headquarters for Promotion of Measures Against Transnational Organized Crime and International Terrorism", with the Chief Cabinet Secretary as head thereof, publicized "the Action Plan for Prevention of Terrorism" including the implementation of the re-revised Recommendations in December 2004. In November 2005, "the Headquarters for the Promotion of Measures Against Transnational Organized Crime and International Terrorism" decided that the National Police Agency would make a draft of law for implementation of the re-revised Recommendations and that the FIU would be transferred from the Financial Services Agency to the National Public Safety Commission / the National Police Agency.

The National Police Agency drafted a bill in cooperation with relevant ministries and agencies and submitted it to the 166th National Diet session in February 2007. "The Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds" was then adopted in March of that year. Partial enforcement of the law stipulating the transfer of the FIU was carried out in April of the same year, while the remaining, such as the extension of the scope of application to business operators required to implement customer identification was enforced in March, 2008.

Since then, the National Police Agency with the cooperation of concerned government ministries, has amended the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds and its sub-regulations in order to appropriately respond to changes in social conditions.

The main amendments in 2011 will be detailed in Chapter 2 (Legal Systems of Countermeasures against Money Laundering).