The Council for Financial Activities Control () is the national

Financial Intelligence Unit A financial intelligence unit (FIU) is a national agency responsible for receiving, analyzing, and disseminating financial information on suspicious or unusual financial activity from the financial industry and other entities or professions req ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

that is responsible for receiving and analyzing information on financial transactions which are considered to be linked to

money laundering Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illicit activities (often known as dirty money) such as drug trafficking, sex work, terrorism, corruption, and embezzlement, and converting the funds i ...

. The COAF disseminates the results of its analyses to the competent authorities where there are grounds to suspect money laundering or terrorist financing. It was originally created in 1998 "under the jurisdiction of the

Ministry of Finance A ministry of finance is a ministry or other government agency in charge of government finance, fiscal policy, and financial regulation. It is headed by a finance minister, an executive or cabinet position . A ministry of finance's portfoli ...

, for the purpose of regulating, applying administrative sanctions, receiving pertinent information, examining and identifying suspicious occurrences of illicit activities related to

." Its organization and structure, as well as its Internal Rules and Regulations, were also defined in a Decree and Administrative Rule respectively, both enacted between October and December 1998. On 19 August 2019 the name of the COAF was changed to ''Financial Intelligence Unit'' (''Unidade de Inteligência Financeira'' in Portuguese) by an provisional decree of the President

Jair Bolsonaro Jair Messias Bolsonaro (; born 21 March 1955) is a Brazilian politician and former military officer who served as the 38th president of Brazil from 2019 to 2023. He previously served as a member of Brazil's Chamber of Deputies (Brazil), Chamb ...

, who transferred the newly created unit under the control of the

Central Bank of Brazil The Central Bank of Brazil (, ) is Brazil's central bank, the bank is autonomous in exercising its functions, and its main objective is to achieve stability in the purchasing power of the national currency. It was established on Thursday, 31 Dece ...

. However, the National Congress of Brazil amended the text of the decree, sanctioned by Law No. 13,974 of 7 January 2020, and decided that the name of the Unit would remain ''Council for Financial Activities Control'' (COAF).

References

External links

Official website in English

Official website in Portuguese
Executive branch of Brazil Finance in Brazil Brazilian intelligence agencies Anti-money laundering organizations {{brazil-gov-stub

See also

References

External links