Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Financial Action Task Force was founded in 1989 at the G7 Summit in Paris to combat the growing global problem of money laundering. It was established on the initiative of the G7 nations, beginning with 16 member countries.
The FATF blacklist, formally called the "Call for action" or previously the Non-Cooperative Countries or Territories list, identifies jurisdictions deemed high-risk for money laundering and terrorism financing. As of the most recent update, Iran, Myanmar, and North Korea are on the blacklist.
The FATF greylist, formally called "Other monitored jurisdictions" or "Jurisdictions Under Increased Monitoring", covers countries under heightened scrutiny but not classified as high-risk. The greylist currently includes countries such as Algeria, Nigeria, Lebanon, Venezuela, and Vietnam, among others.
The Forty Recommendations are the primary international standards for anti-money laundering measures, first issued by FATF in 1990 and revised in 1996 and 2003. They require countries to criminalise money laundering, establish financial intelligence units, implement customer due diligence, and cooperate internationally in investigations.
Following the September 11 attacks in the United States, FATF expanded its mandate in 2001 to include terrorism financing. In October 2001, FATF issued eight Special Recommendations on Terrorism Financing, with a ninth added later, alongside the existing Forty Recommendations on money laundering.
A 2020 paper by Ronald Pol estimated that less than 1% of illegal profits are seized under FATF-promoted policies, with implementation costs running at least one hundred times the value recovered. Pol argued that governments and the financial industry evaluate FATF using largely irrelevant success metrics rather than actual impact.