“Economy and Tourism” imposes administrative penalties of 42 million dirhams to combat money laundering

The Ministry of Economy and Tourism announced the results of its inspection tours to control the private sector’s commitment to the legal requirements to counter money laundering during the first half of 2025, which resulted in the monitoring of 1.063 violations and the signing of administrative penalties of a value of more than 42 million dirhams.

The campaigns targeted the establishments operating in the sectors of the non -financial businesses and the specified financial professions, as part of the Ministry’s continuous efforts to strengthen the compliance system in the country, in line with international best practices and evaluation criteria related to combating financial crimes.

The Ministry stated that these violations include the four fields under its supervision within the sectors of the non -financial business and the specific professions, where 473 violations were liberated with a total value of 20 million dirhams on a number of establishments of the precious metal and precious metal trade sector, while facilities from the real estate sector received 495 violations of approximately 18.5 million dirhams, in addition to 95 violations with a value of more than 4 million AED was released to the sectors of corporate service providers and auditors.

Safia Hashem Al -Safi, the assistant undersecretary of the Ministry’s supervisory and commercial governance sector, stressed that these results reflect the extent of progress made by the Ministry in developing its regulatory system based on an advanced methodology aimed at ensuring the highest levels of compliance with legislation facing money laundering in the business sectors and non -financial professions specified in the country according to a clear mechanism for office and field inspection.

She said that these supervisory campaigns are part of the Ministry’s strategy aimed at building a business environment based on transparency and governance, and to activate pre -emptive control tools in the face of risks related to money laundering and terrorist financing, in a way that establishes the UAE’s position as a reliable economic center that has the highest international standards in commitment and compliance.

She explained that the inspection teams monitored violations based on technical indicators and specific control standards, noting that the signing of administrative sanctions aims primarily to push the facilities towards correcting their conditions and upgrading their internal systems, especially with regard to the application of due care procedures, improving the quality of risk assessments, and enhancing reporting suspicious transactions.

Through these efforts, the Ministry of Economy and Tourism is working to spread the culture of preventive compliance, and to build a real institutional awareness within the targeted sectors, and continues to follow -up and field evaluation operations to ensure full commitment to relevant legislation.

The Ministry called on all facilities subject to legislation to confront money laundering to benefit from this stage to develop its regulatory regulations and complete compliance with the regulatory requirements, confirming their continued implementation of inspection and control campaigns according to an accurate control plan based on best global practices.