With Law No. 5549, legal regulations were made to prevent the laundering of proceeds of crime and the financing of terrorism and to ensure effectiveness in combating these crimes; obligations were set within this scope, and MASAK's duties and powers were expanded to include combating the financing of terrorism as well as combating money laundering.
In addition to the provisions in Law No. 5549 aimed exclusively at combating the financing of terrorism, since terrorist financing is among the predicate offenses of money laundering, the provisions on combating money laundering can also be considered within the scope of combating terrorist financing.
Article 4 of Law No. 5549 established the provision on suspicious transaction reporting and stated that, where there is any information, suspicion or matter requiring suspicion that the assets subject to transactions carried out or attempted with or through obliged parties were obtained illegally or used for illegal purposes, these transactions must be reported to the Presidency by the obliged parties.
Article 19/e of Law No. 5549 gave the MASAK Presidency the duty and power to collect data, receive, analyze and evaluate suspicious transaction reports within the scope of preventing the laundering of proceeds of crime and the financing of terrorism, and subparagraph (ı) of the same article gave it the duty and power to refer the matter to the relevant public prosecutor's office where there are serious suspicions that money laundering or terrorist financing offenses have been committed.
Article 17 of Law No. 5549, titled seizure, provides that where there is strong suspicion that money laundering or terrorist financing offenses have been committed, asset values may be seized in accordance with the procedure in Article 128 of Criminal Procedure Code No. 5271.
Law No. 5549 on the Prevention of Laundering Proceeds of Crime can be accessed from the link below.
