The European Union includes the UAE on the money laundering blacklist
The European Union has included the UAE on the money laundering blacklist in light of its involvement in suspicious financial activities and support for terrorism, and its embrace of drug gang leaders.
The European media announced the inclusion of the UAE on the European Union’s money laundering blacklist, a move they hope will increase pressure on Kinahan cartel members still living there.
Gang leader Daniel Kinahan, his father Christy and his brother Christy Jr. have lived in Dubai for several years and have extensive commercial and real estate interests.
The European Union now considers the UAE a high-risk country that “displays strategic deficiencies in combating money laundering and financing of terrorist regimes.”
This move is expected to pressure the UAE authorities to take more pre-emptive measures against Kinahan’s leadership.
The culmination of this terrifying year for the gang, and Daniel Kinahan in particular, began in March with the imprisonment in the UK of its chief representative, Thomas Bomber Kavanagh, for 21 years.
The UAE followed suit and froze Kinahan’s assets in Dubai. MTK Global, the boxing management company, founded by Daniel Kinahan, announced its closure shortly after.
Irish prisons currently hold about 70 dangerous criminals working directly with the gang.
The UAE blacklist follows concerns raised by MEPs that it is being used by organized criminals to hide their wealth and by Russian oligarchs to evade sanctions.
Mered McGuinness, a former Fine Gael MEP and current European Commissioner for Financial Services said the move would help the blacklisted countries “in their efforts to protect the EU’s financial system and the proper functioning of our single market”.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gibraltar, Mozambique and Tanzania are also blacklisted.
This step will require financial institutions to conduct additional checks for UAE accounts. However, its real value lies in sending a message that the EU expects the UAE to do more to combat money laundering, said Christopher Davidson, a Middle East expert at the London-based Henry Jackson Society.
“I take it as a political statement more than anything else,” he told the Irish Times. It is about reprimanding the UAE in the international arena.
The UAE’s blacklisting came after a joint investigation by more than 20 European media organizations, including The Irish Times, into using Dubai as an investment hub by criminals, oligarchs and politicians.
The leaked records showed that the Kinahan family and their partners own an extensive real estate portfolio in the emirate in addition to a global import and export business.
The decision to blacklist the UAE is part of the European Union’s carrot-and-stick approach to the country, which has recently shown some increased willingness to cooperate in organized crime investigations.
