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UAE suspends licences of 32 gold refineries

Story by Waheed Abbas

• 1w • 2 min read

Gold industry shifts east as Dubai builds huge refinery

The UAE’s Ministry of Economy has suspended the licences of 32 gold refineries in the country for
non-compliancewith the anti-money laundering legislation (AML).

A statement issued by the Ministry said that licences of these refineries, which represent 5 per cent
of the gold sector in the country, were suspended from July 24, 2024 to October 24, 2024.
The Ministry said the decision came after it carried out a series of field inspections on activities
related to the trade and manufacturing of precious metals and gemstones to ensure the highest
levels of AML compliance in the gold sector.

The crackdown against financial crimes has been intensified as inspections found 256 violations by
these refineries, with eight violations for each refinery. The most prominent of these were not taking
necessary measures and procedures to identify risks, not notifying the Financial Information Unit of
a suspicious transaction report when necessary, and not examining customer and transaction
databases against names included in the terrorism lists.

“The UAE affirms its firm commitment to developing an integrated legislative and regulatory system
to combat money laundering and achieve the highest levels of compliance with the policy on due
diligence regulations for the responsible gold supply chain, by keeping pace with the best global
practices in this regard,” said Abdullah Ahmed Al Saleh, undersecretary of the UAE’s Ministry of
Economy.

In September 2022, the Ministry of Economy announced the Due Diligence Regulations Policy for
the Responsible Sourcing Process to provide a strong national work system to combat money

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