Integration of the Financial Intelligence Office (GIF) into the Unitary Police Service (SPU)

To align with the Macao SAR Government’s policy objective of “Streamlining administration”, to promote administrative reform and to further strengthen cooperation between the GIF and the law enforcement agencies, with a view to achieve greater effectiveness in the prevention and combating of crimes related to money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing of weapons of mass destruction. The Macao SAR government intergrated the former GIF (Project Team) into the Unitary Police Service (SPU) by amending the Law and Administrative Regulation.

On 1 February 2024, Law no. 1/2001 “The Unitary Police Service of the Macao Special Administrative Region”, as amended by Law no. 23/2023, entered into force, giving the SPU the attributions and competences to participate in the prevention and combating of crimes related to money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing of weapons of mass destruction. On the same day, Administrative Regulation No. 5/2009 “Organization and Operation of the Unitary Police Service”, as amended by Administrative Regulation No. 3/2024, entered into force, formally integrating the former GIF into the organizational structure of the SPU. The GIF of the SPU, as an organic unit with technical and operational independence, is established within the SPU to ensure that the membership of the Macao SAR in international organizations is not affected and that it continues to perform its statutory functions.

According to the second phase of administrational restructure and the recommendations given in the Macao SAR Mutual Evaluation Report 2017 adopted by the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG), the Macao SAR Government has taken the decision that the future operation of GIF will be under the guidance of the Secretary for Security, in consideration of continuously strengthening the functions of GIF as well as the overall policy and effectiveness of combating money laundering and terrorist financing. This can further reinforce the commitment and effort of the Macao SAR in anti-money laundering and terrorist financing activities. The current competency and structure of GIF will remain unchanged and the move will take effect on 16 October 2018.

To cope with international standard requirements, the new legislation on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing requires the establishment of a special unit to collect, analyze and disseminate information on suspicious money laundering and terrorist financing transaction reports. On 8 August 2006, the Financial Intelligence Office was established under Executive Ruling no. 227/2006 for this purpose, as an independent unit directly under the Secretary for Economy and Finance and is headed by a director nominated by the Chief Executive.

There was great progress in the year of 2006. In April, the Macao Legislative Assembly, under Government proposal, passed the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing legislation, Law no. 2/2006 on prevention and repression of money laundering crimes and Law no. 3/2006 on prevention and repression of terrorism. In May 2006, Administrative Regulation no. 7/2006 was published as a supplementary regulation which set up the legal requirements for financial institutions and other non-financial businesses and professions to carry out customer due diligence measures and report suspicious money laundering/ terrorist financing transactions when detected.

The confiscation of assets was further expanded to other criminal activities by the Penal Code in 1995. The Law on Organized Crimes promulgated in 1997 goes further to deal with crimes related to conversion, transfer or dissimilation of illicit assets or proceeds arising from criminal activities. The Decree Law no. 24/98/M in 1998 stipulates that reporting is mandatory when suspicious transactions were detected, and this law formed the basis of the reporting of suspicious transactions by financial institutions and other entities.

The efforts of Macao SAR in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing can be traced back to the 1990's. In 1991, the Decree-Law on drug control was promulgated to allow the Government to confiscate assets derived from drug trafficking.