Written by Liliana Alcaraz Recalde. Minister of the Secretariat for Prevention of Money or Asset Laundering (Seprelad, by its acronym in Spanish)
The Secretariat for Prevention of Money or Asset Laundering (Seprelad), as the Financial Intelligence Unit of Paraguay, is the institution in charge of regulating the obligations, acts, and procedures to prevent the use of the financial system and other sectors of the economic activity, for carrying out actions aimed at Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing.
In that sense, it works coordinately with private and public institutions that are a part of the Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT).
Recently, on October 29, it was commemorated the National Day for the Prevention of Money Laundering. We celebrated it through a forum developed in several areas across several days, with the participation of national and international speakers.
As a result of this academic activity, audiovisual materials will be presented where the main functions of each of the component institutions of the AML/CFT System can be summarized so that citizens can understand the work carried out by each of them.
The Financial Intelligence Unit of Paraguay has two main functions:
1) It receives the Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) that the Obligated Subjects (OS) (a natural and/or legal person subject to the obligations established in the national AML/CFT laws). The STRs are analyzed to verify the existence of indications of money laundering and financing of terrorism; once the reasoned conclusion corresponding to the STR is obtained, a Financial Intelligence report is prepared, which is then sent to the Public Ministry.
In that aspect, it is essential to mention that not all STRs generate an intelligence report, such as Seprelad, which does not pursue the investigation of punishable acts of money laundering or terrorist financing but instead financial analysis.
2) Seprelad constitutes a supervisor organ of the Obligated Subjects (OS) that do not count on a natural supervisor, such as remittance companies, real estate agencies, people who are dedicated to the purchase and sale of motor vehicles, providers of virtual assets, selling jewelry, precious metals, and stones, among others.
Attending that sometimes there is confusion, in compliance with the provisions of the current Laws, Seprelad dictates the administrative regulations that must be observed by the Obligated Subjects in matters of Prevention of Money Laundering (PLA) and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT), which is based on a system of risk administration and management.
The Seprelad issues regulations on the matter of prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism, but those in charge of ensuring compliance with them and sanctioning (if applicable) are the respective natural supervisors such as the Superintendency of Banks, Superintendency of Insurance and Superintendence of Securities of the Central Bank of Paraguay, National Institute of Cooperatives, National Commission of Gaming, Superior Court of Electoral Justice, among others.
In the functions of the Seprelad, it is not included in the approval or rejection of closures and openings of bank accounts or operations. These are the exclusive competence of each Obligated Subject within the framework of applying the rules regarding the prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism.
Finally, it is essential to say that the Seprelad is the institution that represents Paraguay to the Financial Action Task Force of Latin America (GAFILAT). Following this role, it exercises the Executive coordination of the Inter-institutional Committee of the National Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT).