UN conference endorses India's concerns over black money

Doha: In a major push towards recovering black money stashed in safe havens abroad, a UN conference in Doha on Sunday endorsed India's suggestions on promoting global cooperation in fighting the menace of money laundering, international terrorism and cyber crime.

The 13th UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice was held in Doha and a Doha Declaration was adopted during the high-level segment of the meeting.

Following up on G20's endorsement of concerns raised by it regarding black money, India put immense importance on the acceptance of a statement that will facilitate the eventual confiscation of "money and other assets that have not been accounted for and that are found in safe havens" and succeeded in getting adopted measures that can help achieve the goal.

A clause in the declaration prominently took care of the concern that the Indian government has been emphasising recently at all possible forums.

The declaration agreed to "strengthen or, as appropriate, adopt procedures to more effectively prevent and counter money-laundering and enhance measures for the identification, tracing, freezing, seizure and recovery of the proceeds of crime, including money and other assets that have not been accounted for and that are found in safe havens."

Sources close to the discussion said this major clause was included in the Doha declaration at New Delhi's insistence.

Minister of Law and Justice DV Sadanad Gowda, who is leading a high-level delegation to the Congress, said that "our government has placed a bill in the parliament regarding black money and success in achieving this would require cooperation from the international community and especially countries where such money has been hidden".

"The Doha declaration covers all related issues. Increased globalisation and emergence of new technologies have necessitated greater cooperation among nations. Terror operations in countries are controlled from other parts of the world and the menace can be effectively tackled only if the world community comes together in the fight to control it," Gowda said.

India has also played an important role in getting strong references in the declaration on the issue of terrorism, including foreign terrorist fighters in several paras of the draft.