Dutch Support Early FATF Review of Guatemala

UNCLAS THE HAGUE 000065 SIPDIS SENSITIVE STATE FOR INL/C/CP, WHA/CEN, WHA/EPSC Treasury for Office of Financial Crimes/Glaser Paris also for USOECD E.O. 12958 N/A TAGS: ETTC KCRM EFIN PTER SNAR GT SUBJECT: Dutch Support Early FATF Review of Guatemala REF: State 6394 (SBU) In response to reftel demarche, Jan van den Wall Bake, Senior Coordinator for Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Finance at the Ministry of Finance, said that the United States could count on the full support of the Netherlands tempered only by the constraints imposed by the short time frame. Van den Wall Bake told us that he had just sent a letter to his colleagues from Contributing and Supporting Nations in the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) emphasizing the importance of a timely on-site visit to Guatamala or - if this is impossible before the FATF-plenary in February - some other kind of (significant) diplomatic gesture. In addition to showing support for Guatemala's democratic renewal, van den Wall Bake said that an early review is very important to maintaining good relations between the CFATF and the FATF. Russel