ajith nivard cabraal : money laundering and terrorism financing speech by mr ajith nivard cabraal, governor of the central bank of sri lanka, at the asiapacific group on money laundering typologies workshop 2008, colombo, 27 october 2008. * * * his lordship, the chief justice, hon sarath n silva, the attorney general, other distinguished guests from sri lanka as well as from abroad ; my dear friends. at the outset, i wish to extend to all of you a very warm welcome to this asia pacific group seminar on money laundering and terrorism financing. it is indeed a pleasure to see all of you here, from 34 different countries, and we hope that you will have a wonderful stay and take back happy memories of your period here ; not only as far as the conference is concerned, but also by experiencing our country. sri lanka has been in the forefront of the worldwide efforts on the containment of money laundering and terrorism financing. we have been associated with this effort in a special way, not only to help the international effort, but also to fulfil our own local needs. that is why we are very pleased to see such a large gathering of experts on this subject who are getting together to develop ways and means by which this vexed problem could be dealt with. we are also particularly pleased to have with us, his lordship the chief justice who has graced this occasion and by doing so has unambiguously displayed the commitment of sri lanka ’ s judiciary to this massive effort. our effort against money laundering and terrorist financing cannot be made by one or two persons only, or by one or two agencies only. it has to be a co - ordinated and concentrated effort that needs the support of a wide range of people, both nationally and internationally. in that context, sri lanka ’ s commitment is clear to everyone, and we are particularly pleased to have you with us, the honourable chief justice. my dear friends, the fight against terrorism cannot only be on the military field or battle ground. in my view, the fight has to be on four different fronts simultaneously. although it is vitally important, one cannot defeat terrorism by a military effort only. to successfully deal with terrorism, we need a diplomatic offensive also. diplomatically, we need to ensure that cohesive steps are taken so that, together, countries can meet this challenge. at the same time, the fight has to be on the international media front as well. therefore

ahead. we have to work together. we need to share our informational abilities, as well as our systems, with each other so that we can really put together a concerted effort against money laundering and terrorism financing. my dear friends, i have, with great interest, gone through your workshop session programme. i have seen that it is very comprehensive. the topics range from legal frameworks to issues relating to casinos and gambling. it covers crime investigations and prosecutions, and the vulnerabilities caused by security situations. sometimes, terror financiers and money launderers use the security situation in a country to disguise transactions. i note that you will be considering case studies on terrorist financing and also focus on studies on “ following the money ”, as well as consider the ways of “ asset recovery ”. i remember many years ago, when i was studying accountancy, one of the basics that we were trained in, was how to follow through transactions to a finish. then only, you see exactly how a transaction takes place. that is very important. i was also particularly pleased that you are building up your own capacities to follow through transactions and also have an overview of the methods of cooperation between the financial intelligence units. because, today, there are millions of cross border transactions taking place all the time, across boundaries. in such instances, we need to have a close co - operation between the fius in order to ensure that we are able to be ahead of those with criminal intent. further, i was particularly impressed that all of you are hoping to have an action plan to be implemented thereafter. my dear friends, it goes without saying that we need to come out strongly in our efforts to deal with all these matters. we have seen world economic frameworks being threatened, and being under tremendous pressure during the past one month or so. we have seen unprecedented chaos and turbulence. nevertheless, we have been able to come through because of the diligent work that we have done. in our own country, there were times when we were encouraged to deregulate, deregulate and deregulate. fortunately, we did not deregulate as much as we were advised to, by certain quarters. because of that, we had a few fences around our economy ; and those fences today are the important buffers that are protecting us when the unparallel financial tsunami is hitting the entire world. when you have fences, it is difficult for outsiders to come in. at