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LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY-REPUBLIC OF EL SALVADOR ____________________________________________________________________
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DECREE NO 749
THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF EL SALVADOR,
CONSIDERING:
I.-That, by Legislative Decree No. 498 dated 02 December 1998, published in Official Journal No. 240, Volume 341, of the 23rd of the same month and year, the Law Against the Laundering of Money and Assets was issued.
II. That the aforementioned law aims to prevent, detect, punish and eradicate the Crime of Money Laundering and Assets, and related crimes, as well as their cover-up; same as applicable to any natural or legal person, even if the latter is not legally constituted.
III.-Which, by Legislative Decree No. 568, dated 05 December 2013, published in the Official Journal No. 9, Volume 402 of January 16, 2014, reforms were issued to the aforementioned normative body.
IV.-What, in order to harmonize the legal order of El Salvador to the Standards International on the fight against money laundering and money laundering, the financing of the terrorism and proliferation, reflected in the various recommendations made by the International Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and seeking to improve and address the gaps in the Anti-Money and Money Laundering Law. Assets, it becomes imperative to modify the content of some of its current provisions.
V.-That, for the reasons set forth above, it becomes necessary to issue the relevant legal reforms.
FOR TANTO,
in use of its Constitutional powers and at the initiative of the Deputies José Antonio Almendariz Rivas, Donato Eugenio Vaquerano Rivas, Mario Marroquín Mejía, Roberto José d' Aubuisson Munguía, Antonio Echeverria Veliz and Misael Mejia Mejia.
DECRETA the following:
REFORMS TO THE LAW AGAINST MONEY LAUNDERING AND ASSETS.
Art. 1.-Reform of Art. 2, as follows:
" SUBJECTS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND OBLIGATED SUBJECTS.
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Art. 2. This Law shall be applicable to any natural or legal person even if the latter is not legally constituted; those who must present the information required by the competent authority, which permits the proof of origin -any transaction that they perform.
Required subjects are all those who will have, among other things, report the suspicious financial operations or operations and/or exceed the threshold of the Law, appoint and train a Compliance Officer, and other responsibilities that this Law, the Regulations of the same, as well as the UIF Instructor determines to them.
They are considered bound by this Law, the following:
1) Any company, company or entity of any kind, national or foreign, that integrates an institution, group or financial conglomerate supervised and regulated by the Financial System Superintendency;
2) Micro-financials, Credit Boxes and Non-Banking Financial Intermediaries;
3) Importers or Exporters of Products and Insured Agricultural, and new or used vehicles;
4) Companies Credit Card Stations, Co-issuers and Related Groups;
5) Natural and legal persons making systematic or substantial transfers of funds, including the Houses of Empene and others granting loans;
6) Casinos and Gaming Houses;
7) Metal and Precious Stones Marketers;
8) Real Estate Companies and Brokers;
9) Travel Agencies, Air, Land and Maritime Transport Companies;
10) Natural and legal persons engaged in to the shipment and receipt of shipments and remittance;
11) Construction companies;
12) Private Security and Importer and Firearm Dealers, Munitions, Explosives and Similar Articles;
13) Hotel Companies;
14) Political Parties;
15) Societary Service Providers and Trusts;
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16) Non-governmental Organizations;
17) National and International Investors;
18) Drogueries, Pharmaceutical Laboratories and Pharmacy Chains;
19) Advertising and Media Companies of any form;
20) Associations, Consortium and Business Guild; and,
21) Any other Private or Mixed Economy Institution, and Mercantile Companies.
Thus The Lawyers, Notaries, Accountants and Auditors shall have the obligation to inform or report transactions that make or are made in their trades, greater than Ten Thousand Dollars of the United States of America, as established by Art. 9 of the This Law.
Obligated subjects who are not supervised by an official institution in their ordinary course of activities shall be exempt from the appointment and enforcement of a compliance officer. compliance with the other obligations referred to in point 2 of this Article. '
Art. 2.-Reform Art. 9, as follows:
" Art. 9.-The obligated subjects shall inform the FIU, in writing or any electronic means and within the maximum period of five working days, any transaction or transaction of cash, whether individual or multiple, regardless of whether it is considered suspect or not, made by each user or client that in the same day or in the end of a month exceeds the Ten Thousand Dollars of the United States of America or its equivalent in any foreign currency. The deadline for submitting the information shall be computed from the day following the transaction or transaction. The same liability shall be for financial transactions carried out by any other means, if this is greater than twenty-five thousand dollars of the United States of America or its equivalent in any foreign currency.
insurance companies, within the time limit set out in the preceding subparagraph, shall also inform the FIU of all payments made in respect of the risk compensation which they ensure in excess of the amount indicated in the preceding subparagraph. '
Art. 3.-Reform the first indent and add a final paragraph to Art. 9-A, as follows:
" Art. 9-A.-Reports of suspicious transactions must be sent to the Financial Investigation Unit within the maximum period of five working days, counted from the moment when, according to the analysis carried out, there are sufficient elements of judgment to consider them irregular, inconsistent or unrelated to the type of economic activity of the client. Such analysis shall be carried out at the latest within 15 working days, which may be extended only once, for the same period, upon application to the FIU. "
" The FIU may carry out inspections, analyses or audits on the subject, by random procedure or when there are indications of irregular actions, with the purpose of
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verify due compliance to the above. "
Art. 4.-Reform of Art. 9-B, as follows:
" 9-B.-Required subjects must establish, on the basis of the Regulation of this Law, an internal policy for the effective identification and due diligence of persons. politically exposed, as well as the identity of any other natural or legal person on whose behalf they act, requiring their clients to update and supplement information on that condition.
(a) to be understood as a subject falling within the meaning of Arts 236 and 239 of the Constitution of the Republic, and literals "a", "b" and "c" of Art. 2 of the United Nations Convention against Corruption. "
Art. 5.-Reform the first and literal (e) of Art. 10, as follows:
" Art. 10.-Subject to the obligations set out in the previous article, they shall have the following: "
" e) Under the terms provided for in Art. 9-B of this Law, banks and financial institutions, exchange houses and stock, adopt policies, rules and mechanisms of conduct that will be observed by its administrators, officials and employees, consisting of:
l) How to properly know the economic activity that its clients develop, its magnitude, frequency, basic characteristics of the transactions in which they are involved on a daily basis; In addition, it is not possible to make any deposit in the eyes, in terms of time, savings accounts, to deliver goods in a trust or a fiduciary order, or those that deposit in security boxes, among others. The clients, at the request of the obligated subjects, must provide any type of financial documentation, accounting, tax, representative of the property, possession or possession of movable and immovable property, constancy of wages, or income to justify the origin and purpose of each operation;
II) If the client does not provide the information or documentation required by the required subjects, they may terminate the contractual relations. with that client, which they must inform the FIU;
III) Set the volume, value and movement of funds of its clients are related to the economic activity of the same;
IV) Report to the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Republic, through the FIU, pursuant to Art. 9-A of this Law, any information relevant to the management of funds, the amount or characteristics of which do not relate to the economic activity of their clients; or about transactions of their users, which for the amounts involved, due to their number, complexity, characteristics or special circumstances, will move away from the usual or conventional patterns of transactions of the same gender; and that is why it could reasonably be concluded that it could be used or intended to use the
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financial institution to transfer, manage, leverage or invest money or resources from of criminal activities. "
Art. 6.-Reform of Art. 11, as follows:
" Art. 11.-The obligated subjects must maintain nominative records of their users. They shall not hold anonymous accounts or accounts in which they have incorrect or fictitious names. '
Art. 7.-Reform Art. 12, as follows:
" Art. 12. The obliged subjects must maintain for a period of not less than 15 years the necessary records on transactions carried out, both domestic and international, to enable them to respond promptly to requests for information from the Corresponding oversight or oversight bodies of the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Republic and the competent courts in connection with the crime of money laundering and money laundering. Such records shall serve to reconstruct each transaction in order to provide, if necessary, evidence of criminal conduct. "
Art. 8.-Reform the first and second indent with its literal (a) of Art. 13, as follows:
" Art. 13.-The obligated subjects must control the transactions performed by their clients and users, which exceeds the amounts established and the conditions indicated in Art. 9, first paragraph of this Law.
To take control indicated, the required subjects will be able to automatically capture in their systems the relevant data to identify their customers and users, use the form designed by the Financial Research Unit for this purpose, provided when the following requirements are met:
a) Identification of the person performing physically the transaction, noting its full name, date of birth, nationality, domicile and residence, profession or trade, family status, identity document presented; "
Art. 9.-Reform the first and second subparagraphs (a) and (d) of Art. 14, as follows:
" Art. 14.-The obligated subjects must establish a Compliance Officer, in charge of an Officer appointed by the Board of Directors or competent body. "
" The Compliance Officer must meet the following requirements:
a) Certification ratified by the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic, in matters of prevention of money laundering and assets, financing of terrorism, and two years of experience in these branches; "
" d) Contar with academic degree at the university level and knowledge on administrative and legal aspects of the business or activity in question. "
Art. 10.-Reform Art. 15, as follows:
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" Art. 15. In the event of non-compliance with the obligations laid down in this Law and other normative provisions, the subject shall assume the responsibility laid down in Article 38 (2) of the Penal Code, without prejudice to personal criminal liability which is applicable under Chapter II of this Law, as well as the various forms of criminal co-participation that are regulated in the Criminal Code and other consequences that are applicable, including the administrative order. "
Art. 11.-Reform the third and fifth subparagraphs of Art. 20, as follows:
" If the deadline has elapsed, without the person concerned being asked to justify in the terms of the preceding paragraph, the total amount of the retained value shall be paid to the Special Fund referred to in Art. 93 of the Special Law on the Extinction of the Domain and the Administration of the Goods of Origin or the Illicit Destination. "
" If the legality of the origin of the money, assets and retained securities is not demonstrated, they shall enter into the Special Fund established by Art. 93 of the Special Law on the Extinction of the Domain and the Administration of the Goods of Origin or Illicit Destination. '
Art. 12.-Derogase Art. 23.
Art. 13.-Reform Art. 26-A, as follows:
" Art. 26-A.-The obligated subjects, their legal representatives and employees shall not incur any liability for the fact that they refer to the Financial Investigation Unit the established reports or any information they require; as well as, for carrying out the acts in compliance with the provisions of this Law. "
Art. 14. Intercalase between Art. 29 and Art. 30, Art. 29-A as a transitional arrangement, as follows:
" Art. 29-A.-The fulfilment of the requirement laid down in Article 14 of this Law shall be enforceable six months after the date of this Decree. "
Art. 15.-This Decree will enter into force eight days after its publication in the Official Journal.
GIVEN IN THE BLUE HALL OF THE LEGISLATIVE PALACE: San Salvador, at the sixteen days of July of the year two thousand fourteen.
OTHON SIGFRIDO REYES MORALES, PRESIDENT.
ENRIQUE ALBERTO LUIS VALDEZ SOTO, GUILLERMO ANTONIO GALLEGOS NAVARRETE, FIRST VICE PRESIDENT. SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT.
JOSÉ FRANCISCO MERINO LÓPEZ, LORENA GUADALUPE PEÑA MENDOZA, THIRD VICE PRESIDENT. FOURTH VICE-PRESIDENT.
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CARLOS ARMANDO REYES RAMOS, FIFTH VICE PRESIDENT.
GUILLERMO FRANCISCO MATA BENNETT, MANUEL VICENTE MENJÍVAR ESQUIVEL, FIRST SECRETARY. SECOND SECRETARY.
SANDRA MARLENE SALGADO GARCÍA, JOSÉ RAFAEL MACHUCA ZELAYA, THIRD SECRETARY. FOURTH SECRETARY.
IRMA LOURDES PALACIOS VÁSQUEZ, ERNESTO ANTONIO ANGULO MILLA, FIFTH SECRETARY. SIXTH SECRETARY.
FRANCISCO JOSE ZABLAH SAFIE, JOSE SERAFIN ORANTES RODRIGUEZ, SEVENTH SECRETARY. EIGHTH SECRETARY.
CASA PRESIDENTIAL: San Salvador, seven days of the month of August of the year two thousand fourteen.
PUBESQUIESE,
Salvador Sánchez Cerén, President of the Republic.
Benito Antonio Lara Fernández, Minister of Justice and Public Security.
D. O. No. 143 Took No. 404 Date: August 7, 2014
JQ/ngcl 04-09-2014
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