LATVIAN RESPONSE: FATF STATEMENT AND GUIDANCE ON

C O N F I D E N T I A L RIGA 000828 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/07/2017 TAGS: PARM PREL MNUC ECON LG SUBJECT: LATVIAN RESPONSE: FATF STATEMENT AND GUIDANCE ON IRAN REF: SECSTATE 149648 ¶1. (U) Poloff delivered reftel demarche to Judite Dobele, the GOL MFA's Head of Middle East and Africa Division, Viesturs Burkans, the GOL Prosecutor General's office Head of the Financial Investigation Unit, and Janis Brazovskis, the GOL Head of Financial Integrity Division in the Financial and Capital Market Commission (FCMC). All three offices were already familiar with the FATF actions, and recognized their importance. ¶2. (U) Dobele underlined the systems in place to combat money laundering, terrorism financing and WMP proliferation in Latvia, and confirmed their commitment to continuing these actions in the future. Dobele could not confirm whether there were any Iranian businesses operating in Latvia, but they doubted there were. ¶3. (U) Brazovskis stated that the FCMC had issued a letter on July 10, 2007 advising Latvian banks to perform enhanced due diligence on all customers doing business with Iran or who were registers or were residents of Iran in order to ensure that international sanctions were not violated and that transactions of these clients had a lawful and economic purpose and were in line with normal patters of clients' business activities. ¶4. (C) Post understands that following Latvian Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis' November 2 meeting with Deputy Secretary of Treasury Kimmett, Kalvitis personally called several leading members in the Latvian banking community and urged them in strong terms to ensure that there were no Iranian transactions going through Latvia. SELDOWITZ