This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 AMMAN 008045 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NOFORN 
 
TREASURY FOR DEMOPULOS/GLASER/ZARATE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/24/2014 
TAGS: EFIN ETTC PREL PGOV JO KTRF
SUBJECT: TREASURY-LED DELEGATION FINDS DEFICIENCIES IN 
AML/CFT CONTROLS; PUSHES FOR GREATER GOJ AML/CFT COOPERATION 
 
REF: A. 151900Z DIRECTOR 628732 (15 MARCH 2004) 
     ¶B. 2003 AMMAN 6000 
 
Classified By: Charge d'Affaires David Hale for reasons 1.4 (b), (c), a 
nd (d) 
 
¶1. (C)SUMMARY: A visit by a Treasury-led team focused on 
terrorist financing and anti-money laundering issues, both 
with respect to broad structural concerns and specific 
bilateral information requests.  Regarding the structural 
issues, the team found that the Jordanian anti-money 
laundering (AML) and combating financing of terror (CFT) 
regime suffers from significant deficiencies, including lack 
of a financial intelligence unit and a regime of strict bank 
secrecy.  While a draft AML law that is currently before 
Parliament will substantially improve matters, Jordan's 
strict bank secrecy laws will continue to represent an 
obstacle to effective international cooperation on anything 
other than a highly informal level. 
 
¶2. (S/NF) Regarding specific requests for information, all 
cited Jordanian bank secrecy laws as preventing such 
cooperation.  However, Arab Bank, with the unofficial nod of 
the Central Bank, did eventually provide detailed information 
on several Hamas and former Iraqi regime-related accounts 
(reftel A).  The Jordan National Bank (JNB), however, did not 
provide information on account transactions concerning U.S. 
currency found in Baghdad at the end of the war in Iraq. END 
SUMMARY. 
 
¶3. (U) A delegation composed of personnel from the 
Departments of Treasury and State, the New York Federal 
Reserve Bank, OFAC, and the IRS held meetings in Amman 
September 22-23.  The delegation, led by Daniel Glaser, 
Director of the Treasury Executive Office for Terrorism 
Finance and Financial Crimes, met during that time with GOJ 
officials including the Ministers of Finance and Justice, the 
Legal Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the 
Governor and Deputy Governors of the Central Bank of Jordan 
(CBJ).  The delegation also met with top executives from the 
Arab Bank, Housing Bank, and Jordan National Bank (the three 
largest banks in Jordan), and with the Jordanian branch of 
Lebanon-based Audi Bank (septel).  Charge attended many and 
Emboffs accompanied the delegation to all of these meetings. 
 
------------------------------- 
JORDAN BEHIND THE AML/CFT CURVE 
------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) Based on the delegation's meetings with GOJ 
officials, the delegation concluded that Jordan's AML/CFT 
legal and regulatory framework falls significantly short of 
international standards.  In particular, Jordan has no 
comprehensive law criminalizing AML activities, no financial 
intelligence unit (FIU), and maintains strict bank secrecy 
that prevents effective international cooperation.  While an 
AML law has been circulating in draft form within the GOJ for 
almost a year, this draft has only just been approved by the 
full Cabinet.  It will be submitted for the approval of 
Parliament when it comes back in session (likely late 
November).  Embassy received a copy of an earlier draft of 
this law, which was initially created in cooperation with the 
IMF, and it has passed the draft law to the desk and to 
Treasury for review. 
 
¶5. (U) At present, Jordan bases its AML/CFT safeguards on a 
combination of other laws related to financial crime, 
terrorism, and financial supervision. While these laws, 
including the Banking Law and the Central Bank Law, contain 
some positive provisions, including customer identification 
requirements, Jordan's bank secrecy law essentially prevents 
international information exchange unless the Prosecutor 
General has opened a criminal case in Jordanian courts. 
According to MFA Legal Advisor Samer Naber, Jordan can also 
provide information on accounts related to terrorism, but 
only if that account is related to a group or individual 
identified by the UNSCR 1267 list or if the Prosecutor 
General makes an independent determination that the account 
is directly related to terrorist acts. 
 
¶6. (C) The absence of a comprehensive and effective AML/CFT 
regime leaves Jordan well behind the trend of the past 
several years among international financial centers including 
regional centers such as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and 
the UAE, and other secrecy jurisdictions such as Switzerland. 
 GOJ officials appeared surprised to hear that Jordan was 
behind international standards and practice in AML/CFT 
safeguards.  Finance Minister Mohammed Abu Hammour, replied 
that he had thought that Jordan was ahead of the region on 
this subject.  The recently appointed CBJ Deputy Governor 
Faris Sharaf, whose remit as Deputy Governor includes banking 
supervision, noted his belief that the FATF had certified 
Jordan as compliant, only to admit when pressed that all he 
was sure of was that Jordan had not been identified by FATF 
as non-compliant.  In fact, Jordan has never been reviewed by 
FATF.  Sharaf also noted that the IMF had recently sent a 
team to Jordan to, among other things, assess Jordan,s 
compliance with overall international AML/CFT standards.  The 
IMF's assessment, however, did not rate Jordan's AML/CFT 
compliance, though Treasury understands that the IMF 
identified significant problems. 
 
¶7. (U) The delegation welcomed the news that both Minister of 
Finance Mohammed Abu Hammour and CBJ Deputy Governor Faris 
Sharaf will attend the inaugural MENA-FATF conference in 
Bahrain in November. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------------- 
AN INFORMAL WILLINGNESS TO HELP; MIXED PERFORMANCE IN PRACTICE 
--------------------------------------------- --------------- 
 
¶8. (S/NF) In practice, at least on this visit, players 
expressed their willingness to bend the rules for us.  While 
most interlocutors expressed a desire to share information 
with the U.S., they cited bank secrecy as tying their hands. 
The CBJ, however, when pressed, eventually agreed to advise 
banks informally that they could provide information directly 
to the delegation if the banks so chose.  Based on a call 
from the Central Bank Governor to this effect, Arab Bank met 
for a second time with the delegation and provided account 
information that the Embassy had originally requested from 
the GID in February and March and from the CBJ in July. 
Operations Division Chief Fawzan Shukri gave the delegation 
information on the accounts, dates of opening and closing 
and the account balances at the time when the accounts were 
closed (or, in some cases, seized or frozen ) Embassy will 
report all of the information passed at this meeting septel). 
 He also promised to deliver transaction records on these 
accounts to the USG within a week.  Arab Bank noted that they 
had passed information on these accounts to the CBJ on 
several occasions.  CBJ had not informed the Embassy, despite 
frequent requests for a response, including to the Prime 
Minister. 
 
¶9. (C) Jordan National Bank (JNB), was engaged by the 
delegation on two subjects of concern to the USG.  The first 
request made by the delegation was for information on the 
party or parties who purchased from JNB hundreds of millions 
of dollars in new U.S. bank notes originating at the New York 
Federal Reserve Bank, purchased by JNB, and found as part of 
$700 million in a palace in Baghdad in April 2003.  The 
second request was for transaction records of specific 
accounts at JNB that the USG believes may have been used by 
the former Iraqi regime to receive illegal kickbacks and 
other moneys from Oil-for-Food (OFF) program suppliers. 
(These two requests were also made of the Housing Bank.) 
Acting JNB CEO Rashid Daoudi replied that while he would be 
willing to turn over the information on currency purchases if 
he received an oral approval from the CBJ, he would require 
an official request from the CBJ before he would turn over 
account information.  (Despite the CBJ's earlier promise to 
call JNB to provide an informal green light, JNB maintained 
that it had received no such call by the time of the 
meeting.)  He refused to accept a proffered diskette with 
information on the currency purchases without clearance from 
the CBJ. 
 
¶10. (C) The Housing Bank for Savings and Investment, with 
which the delegation met prior to its meeting with the CBJ, 
had yet another standard for information it was willing to 
share.  Executive Manager Ahmed Abdel-Fattah, when asked 
about the measures that the bank had taken in order to ensure 
that no money laundering was taking place within the bank, 
spoke at length on general principles, and repeatedly made 
reference to a compliance manual that all bank employees were 
made to read.  When asked for a copy, however, he told 
Emboffs that he would need CBJ permission to hand over such 
information.  When engaged by the delegation on the same 
requests made of JNB, he again said that he would need CBJ 
clearance to release such information. 
------------ 
ATMOSPHERICS 
------------ 
 
¶11. (C) While most interlocutors expressed a desire to 
cooperate, CBJ Governor Toukan reacted defensively to 
requests for information, particularly with regard to Arab 
Bank, affirming his strong belief that the banks could not 
have been involved in any illegal activity.  He reiterated 
several themes that are by now familiar to us: the closeness 
of the Jordanian relationship to the United States, the 
strictness of the Arab Bank in its relations with account 
holders, the importance of the Arab Bank,s health to the 
Jordanian economy as a whole, the reasons why any terrorist 
would avoid the banking sector entirely as a method of cash 
transfer in favor of less-regulated financial sectors, and 
the unfairness of holding a bank responsible for the sins of 
its clients. 
 
¶12. (C) Toukan also repeatedly made clear his unwillingness 
to make any formal requests for information to any bank 
without an order from the Prosecutor General, noting in 
passing the September 2003 political turbulence that the CBJ 
had endured the leaking of an order CBJ had sent to Jordanian 
banks to freeze accounts of several Hamas-related entities 
and individuals (reftel B).  Several times, he made the point 
that the CBJ is &a technical body, not a political one.8 
Nonetheless, after considerable discourse, Toukan agreed to 
call the relevant officials at the Arab Bank, Housing Bank, 
and JNB and give his oral consent to those banks, sharing of 
account information with the delegation upon its request. 
This resulted in direct cooperation from the Arab Bank. 
 
------- 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶13. (C) Jordan's lack of an FIU and its strict bank secrecy 
result in the CBJ and the Jordanian banks being unwilling to 
provide AML/CFT-related financial information without 
political cover.  The CBJ is being squeezed between strong 
U.S. pressure to cooperate in investigating terrorism finance 
and Iraqi regime accounts and its own inability to action in 
violation of the law.  A strong U.S. push at the political 
level for legislative and regulatory changes, combined with 
the technical support necessary to help the GOJ implement 
such arrangements, could provide the necessary impetus to put 
these mechanisms in place.  Simultaneously, the Justice 
Minister is working with the Embasssy on improved procedures 
for overall bilateral law enforcement cooperation, to include 
AML/CFT issues.  Governor Touqan said he had encouraged this 
approach. 
 
¶14. (U) Daniel Glaser cleared this cable prior to departure. 
HALE