India, US to cooperate more in fighting illicit money traffic
New Delhi, Feb 12 (IANS) India and the US Thursday agreed to increase cooperation to halt illicit money flows after it has emerged that Iranian oil export revenues had been siphoned out of state-run UCO Bank in a suspected money-laundering operation.
"We all agreed to enhance cooperation between our agencies in fighting illicit finance in all forms," said the joint statement issued after the Fifth India-US Economic and Financial Partnership Dialogue, where the delegations were led respectively by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.
Earlier, addressing a joint press conference, Jaitley said: "The issue did not come up during our discussions, though we did discuss money laundering and its relation to terrorism."
"A large number of these funds come through concealed identities, and the concerned authorities, including the central bank, have taken appropriate action," he added.
The case concerns a group of people from Iran and Azerbaijan, who after entering India on student visas, set up a group of shell companies to siphon off $3.2 billion from UCO Bank.
The joint statement further said: "We noted the need for an early conclusion of reciprocal arrangement on the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act and look forward to working for an early adoption of the new global standards on automatic exchange of information for getting information about unaccounted money hoarded in offshore jurisdictions and tax havens."
Reacting to media report earlier this week that 1,195 Indians were in the list of clients who held accounts in HSBC bank's Geneva branch from 2006-2007, Jaitley told reporters here that the government has completed assessment of 350 foreign accounts while tax-evasion proceedings have been initiated against 60 account holders.