In order to prevent money laundering and financing of terrorism, the Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing was adopted in Lithuania.  

In Republic of Lithuania, evasion of tax payments and payments equivalent thereto, the direct object of which is economic interests and the interests of the State in the field of tax revenues may result in criminal liability.  

Therefore credit institutions, tax advisors, accountants, auditors, sworn notaries, attorneys at law, other independent providers of legal services, persons providing encashment services and other legal or natural persons, according to the type of their activity, perform the relevant procedures to clarify, evaluate and conceive clients` typical money laundering risk and, based on the risk analysis, establish money laundering prevention internal control system and they have a duty to report to the Special Investigation Service for every unusual and suspicious transaction.

An internal control system is a set of measures in order to prevent as much as possible the subject involvement in money laundering. An internal control system includes:

1. Criteria according to which a monetary operation or transaction are considered suspicious or unusual;
2. Procedure of termination of suspicious monetary operations and transactions and submission of information about suspicious or unusual monetary operations or transactions to the Financial Crime Investigation Service under the Ministry of the Interior (hereinafter FCIS);
3. Rules for the keeping the register of suspicious or unusual monetary operations and transactions of the customer and criteria on the basis of which large-scale ongoing permanent and regular monetary operations are defined;
4. Procedure for identifying a customer and beneficial owner and of several monetary operations linked with each other;
5. Procedure and criteria of simplified customer due diligence on the basis of which a customer is considered as representing a low risk of money laundering and/or terrorist financing;
6. Procedure and criteria of enhanced customer due diligence on the basis of which a customer is considered as posing a high risk of money laundering and/or terrorist financing.
   
   

Credit institutions must take measures to identify a customer and beneficial owner and verify their identity in the following cases:

1. Before entering into business relationships, i.e. concluding a bank account or bank deposit agreements, providing the services of safe custody of valuables or entering into other agreements with a customer;
2. Before carrying out occasional monetary operations or concluding transactions exceeding EUR 15 000, or its equivalent in foreign currency, whether the transaction is carried out in a single operation or in several operations which appear to be linked, except in cases when a customer and beneficial owner has already been identified;
3. Before exchanging cash, when cash amount being exchanged exceeds EUR 6 000, or its equivalent in foreign currency;
4. When carrying out or receiving money transfers in cases established in Regulation (EC) No. 1781/2006;
5. When there are doubts about the veracity or adequacy of previously obtained customer identification data;
6. In all other cases of suspected previous or future money laundering and/or terrorist financing activities, irrespective of the amount of a monetary operation or other exemptions.
   
   

If during a monetary operation its final amount is not clear, credit institutions shall identify the customer and the beneficial owner immediately after having established that a monetary operation exceeds EUR 15,000 or its equivalent in foreign currency. In case of several monetary operations linked with each other identification of the customer and the beneficial owner shall take place immediately after having established that monetary operations are linked with each other.