Lebanon Removed from the Grey List for Money Laundering Monitoring

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), responsible for monitoring financial crimes, issued a statement that Lebanon is not included on the "grey list" of countries subject to special scrutiny. This follows initial assessments that raised concerns about Lebanon potentially being placed on the list. However, the revised list announced today, after a meeting of the group, did not include Lebanon, and officials from the group did not mention Lebanon during a press conference following their statement about the list. A knowledgeable diplomatic source had stated last month that the FATF’s Middle East and North Africa division rated Lebanon just above the threshold for the grey list during an initial assessment. The source also mentioned that Lebanon is working to improve its status.