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In the run-up to the extraordinary meeting of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), Mr Chikhanchin told the President about the many Russian initiatives to fight the financing of terrorism. In particular, Russia’s suggestions include freezing transactions conducted in the interests of terrorist groups and involving oil and cultural assets.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Chikhanchin, you were going to meet with colleagues from FATF and discuss combatting the financing of terrorism.

Head of the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring Yury Chikhanchin: That’s right.

Vladimir Putin: What proposals are they working on?

Yury Chikhanchin: In the coming days, FATF will hold an extraordinary session. This has to do with the decision made buy the G20 summit where you spoke and raised the issue of financing terrorism. The Russian delegation is going and we will raise several issues.

The first issue pertains to UN Security Council Resolution No. 2199. We suggest criminalising, or freezing, economic resources, first and foremost, oil, oil products, cultural assets and everything else. We will insist for a new standard to be formed and for all countries to adhere to this decision.

The second issue we would like to draw attention to is the creation of a unified international list of terrorists – in other words, individuals who participated in ISIS events. These are people who participated and went back, and there should be a Security Council resolution about them, as with the Al-Qaeda list. We believe this is justified. Naturally, this should be followed by corresponding measures, i.e., freezing these people’s assets, introducing other sanctions, and so on.

The third set of issues we would like to raise has to do with identifying financial centres, financial institutions, used by ISIS and taking corresponding measures directly in the country involved.

Vladimir Putin: To monitor money wires.

Yury Chikhanchin: Yes, through money wires, as you also said at the G20 summit. We currently have a methodology, and we will try to explain it at a certain point. Moreover, I would like to say that this methodology has been launched in CIS countries under the auspices of CIS heads of financial intelligence.

We have proposed it and already talked it through with several countries, shared our methodology, particularly with our Australian colleagues. They were able to use our methodology to identify several people participating in ISIS, and appropriate actions are being taken. The same is true for Korea. Today, we are working with Armenia and Kazakhstan. In other words, the methodology is yielding results. We would like for the entire world to try it. That is our primary objective, our main goal for this visit. I will report to you about the results.

Vladimir Putin: Good.

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