People are not very interested in the banking system of Armenia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of bank deposits, citizens don’t trust the banks with keeping their money anymore. In spite of this, international financial organizations do different things with the purpose of preventing possible money laundering in Armenian banks. Last week, there was a seminar dedicated to that issue with the RA Central Bank and general prosecutor’s office representatives. Bankers and prosecutors said once more that they were ready to fight against money laundering in Armenia. The fact that the top representatives of these bodies take part in those seminars shows that the international institutions are very interested in those issues. Armenia is a very good country for money laundering. There are well-developed private banks that are represented in international financial institutions. Our banks are experienced in money transfers. Thanks to the construction going on in Armenia and transfers from abroad, there is a lot of cash money flowing to Armenia. According to specialists, this covers one billion dollars. There is no information concerning the cash flows of Russian ruble and Euro yet. It is evident that this much cash money making its way to Armenian economy attracts the people who want to wash money in Armenia. Besides that, there aren’t any legal and banking mechanisms in Armenia preventing money laundering. The RA law on foreign currency and foreign currency exchange rate regulation was adopted in December, 2004. There aren’t enough specialists in the banking system and legal field who can use this law in a duly manner. This law was amended twice during these two years. It was evident that the international institutions were interested and were active during that process. The West was also interested in it because usually money laundering is organized by drug barons and high rank officials of different countries. During the past couple of years, terrorism made them be more careful to money flows in international banks. Last week the US central controlling body announced that they had started following up on bank transfers and how many there are several years long before that. When fighting against terrorism the West usually doesn’t pay so much attention to its own security and they don’t pay much attention to human rights. When adopting laws, Armenian legislators know very well that Western institutions follow up on what they are doing. Nevertheless, when reading the provisions of the law on foreign currency and currency exchange rate regulation, we see that the main principle in the basis of that law is security. The Central Bank is entitled to many rights, “With the purpose of fighting against financial support to terrorism, money flows resulted from crimes and other relative activities, the RA Central Bank is entitled to adopt norms and regulations for controlling capital flows”. The fact that those institutions continue encouraging us to fight against money laundering means that they are not satisfied with the effectiveness of our work. According to the official information of the general prosecutor’s office, they are currently investigating only one such crime. According to them, “Conversebank” noticed that one of their clients from Russia, “Coba” company, made mysterious transfers and informed the CB about that. It is a long time that the CB has a department dealing with such crimes. Bankers examined those documents and sent them to the general prosecutor’s office. The criminal case is still under consideration. This case of money laundering does not satisfy the international organizations and countries that have become a target for terrorism. This is the reason why they are so interested in Armenian economy. Furthermore, many people think that terrorism is financially supported by Russia, Middle Eastern and Latin American. There are Armenians in all the mentioned regions and countries. Furthermore, there are Armenians who are actually successful businessmen in those countries.
