Capítulo IV. De las personas obligadas y de sus obligaciones

For purposes of this Law, the following shall be considered obligated persons:

1)Entities subject to the supervision and inspection of the Superintendency of Banks.

2)Individual or juridical persons engaged in brokerage or intermediation in the negotiation of securities.

3)Credit card issuing and operating entities.

4)Off-shore entities operating in Guatemala, defined as entities engaged in financial intermediation incorporated or registered under the laws of another country and conducting their activities principally outside the jurisdiction of such country.

5)Individual or juridical persons carrying out any of the following activities:

a)Systematic or substantial check-exchange operations.

b)Systematic or substantial operations for the issuance, sale or purchase of traveler's checks or postal money orders.

c)Systematic or substantial transfers of funds and/or movement of capital.

d)Factoring.

e)Financial leasing.

f)Purchase and sale of foreign currency.

lease of safe-deposit boxes or the execution of

g)Any other activity which by the nature of its operations may be used for money laundering or other assets, as established in the regulations.

Obligated persons shall adopt, develop and implement suitable internal programs, rules, procedures and controls to prevent the misuse of their services and products in activities of money laundering or other assets. These programs shall include, at a minimum:

a)Procedures that ensure a high level of personnel integrity and knowledge of the personal, employment and asset background of employees.

b)Ongoing training for personnel and instruction as to the responsibilities and obligations arising from this law. Such training shall also encompass knowledge of techniques enabling employees to detect transactions that may be linked to money laundering or other assets and how to proceed in such cases.

c)Establishment of an audit mechanism to verify and evaluate compliance with programs and rules.

d)The formulation and implementation of specific measures to know and identify clients.

Likewise, obligated persons shall designate managerial officers in charge of monitoring compliance with internal programs and procedures, as well as compliance with the obligations imposed by this law, including the maintenance and submission of adequate records and the reporting of suspicious and unusual transactions. Such officers shall serve as liaison with the competent authorities. The Superintendency of Banks, through the Special Verification Intendency, shall ensure compliance with the obligations established in this article.

In no case may obliged persons maintain anonymous accounts or accounts appearing under fictitious or inaccurate names. In the case of non-nominative accounts, obliged persons shall maintain the register referred to in Article 21 of this law, which they shall be required to produce upon order of the competent authority.

Obligated persons shall keep a register in the forms to be designed for such purpose by the Special Verification Intendency of the natural or legal persons with whom they establish commercial relationships or relationships in the ordinary or apparent course of their business, whether such persons are occasional or regular clients; and of the transactions carried out with them, particularly with regard to the opening of new accounts, the performance of fiduciary transactions, cash transactions exceeding the amount established in Article 24 of the present law.

Likewise, they shall reliably verify the identity, business name or denomination of the person, age, occupation or corporate purpose, marital status, domicile, nationality, authority to act, legal capacity and legal personality of the persons referred to in the preceding paragraph. In the case of foreigners, obligated persons shall require proof by reliable means of their legal entry into and stay in the country, as well as their immigration status and, when they are not residents in the country, the identity of the person who will legally represent them.

Obligated persons shall adopt the necessary measures to obtain, update, verify and retain information concerning the true identity of third parties for whose benefit an account is opened or a transaction is carried out when there is doubt as to whether such third parties may be acting for their own benefit or, at the same time, are doing so for the benefit of another third party, especially in the case of legal persons that do not carry out commercial, financial or industrial operations in the country or in the country where they have their seat or domicile.

The records referred to in Articles 20, 21 and 22 of this Law shall be updated while the commercial relationship is in force, and retained for a minimum of five years after completion of the transaction or after the account has been closed. Likewise, obligated persons shall maintain records permitting reconstruction of transactions exceeding the amount stated in Article 24 of this Law, for a minimum of five years after conclusion of the transaction.

The obligated persons shall keep a daily register, on the forms designed for such purpose by the Special Verification Intendancy, of all transactions they carry out in cash, whether occasional or habitual, in national or foreign currency and which exceed the amount of ten thousand dollars of the United States of America or its equivalent in national currency. Multiple cash transactions, both in national or foreign currency, which in the aggregate exceed the amount established in this article shall be considered as a single transaction if they are carried out by or for the benefit of the same person during one day.

Every natural or legal person, national or foreign, who transports from or to outside the Republic, by itself, or through an interposed person, money in cash or in documents, for a sum greater than ten thousand dollars of the United States of America or its equivalent in national currency, shall report it at the port of exit or entry of the country on the forms that the Special Verification Intendency shall design for such purpose.

Special when it so requires. Competent authorities, to indicate and provide the means. Customs agents or agents of the National Civil Police may verify, by interview, the information provided in the sworn declaration contained in the form referred to in the preceding paragraph; they may likewise search the baggage, containers or shipments of passengers and of legal persons, as applicable, as well as the passenger himself.

In case of unjustified omission of the declaration or falsity therein, the money or the related documents shall be seized and placed at the disposal of the Public Prosecutor's Office for its investigation and the exercise of the action of extinction of domain, contemplated in the law on the matter. The person shall be subject to criminal proceedings for the crimes of ideological falsehood and perjury, and if the legal conditions are met, for money or other asset laundering or concealment, as applicable.

Obligated persons shall pay special attention to all transactions, whether concluded or not, that are complex, unusual, significant, and to all patterns of non-habitual transactions and to non-significant but periodic transactions, which have no evident economic or legal basis, and shall immediately report the same to the Special Verification Intendency.

Obligated persons shall not make known to any person, except to a tribunal or to the Public Prosecutor's Office, that information has been requested from them or that they have provided it to another tribunal or competent authority.

Obligated persons shall provide to the Special Verification Intendency the information requested by it, in the form and within the time limit established in the regulation, in relation to the data and documentation referred to in the preceding articles for the purposes of this law.

When those obligated to provide the information are unable to do so within the time limit stipulated by the Special Verification Intendency, they may request an extension with due advance notice explaining the reasons justifying it, and it shall be decided before the originally indicated time limit expires.

No violation of confidentiality of any nature, imposed by law or by contract, may be invoked with respect to the information that obligated persons must provide to the competent authorities in compliance with this law or the provisions regulating it.

Obligated persons shall send a copy of the records referred to in Articles 21, 22 and 24 of this Law, in the form and within the time indicated by the regulation, to the Verification Intendency.

Obligated persons, their owners, directors, managers, administrators, officers, legal representatives and duly authorized employees who have provided information in compliance with this law are expressly exempted from criminal, civil or administrative liability, and of any kind.

The obligated persons referred to in Article 18 of this law shall be liable for non-compliance with the obligations that this law imposes on them and shall be sanctioned by the competent administrative authority with a fine of ten thousand dollars (USA $10,000.00) to fifty thousand dollars (USA $50,000.00) of the United States of America, or its equivalent in national currency, according to the seriousness of the act; in addition to having to comply with the omitted obligation that gave rise to the sanction within the time limit set by the competent authority, and without prejudice to the criminal liability they may have incurred.