Portugal may not have scored well in this year’s Human Freedom Index, but as a country that prevents money-laundering it is in the world’s top 12.
This remarkable news has come from the Basel Institute of Governance, an independent body that has been issuing its Anti-Money Laundering Index since 2012.
Portugal, at 12th place, is ahead of countries like the UK (in 28th position), France (29th), Spain (45th) and even Denmark (ranked 15th).
As in the HFI, Portugal has ranked ahead of any other Portuguese-speaking country – with Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau placed very close to the bottom of the table which ends with Iran at position 152.
For the Justice Ministry, the news is manna from heaven after a particularly difficult year riddled with complex investigations into suspicions of fraud, corruption and money-laundering on a vast scale.
Commenting on the report issued yesterday (Wednesday), a source at the ministry praised the “decisive” performance of the financial information unit of the judicial police (PJ), as well as the Bank of Portugal’s “money-laundering nucleus”.
The Basel Institute of Governance works with information provided by the World Bank, World Economic Forum and Transparency International.
Top of this year’s list was Finland, followed by Estonia, Slovenia, Lithuania and New Zealand.
Also ahead of Portugal in the rankings were Bulgaria, Poland, Sweden, Chile, Malta and Hungary.
