The participants of the February 27 meeting noted some improvements reflected in the records provided by the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring and the Bank of Russia. They noted the better coordination and more effective work of law enforcement during investigations and inspections at banks and other institutions.

Viktor Zubkov praised the close cooperation between the Federal Tax Service and the Russian Investigative Committee as part of their agreement on interdepartmental cooperation, as well as the effective joint inspections conducted by the Federal Tax Service and the Ministry of the Interior to uncover and curb illegal financial transactions.

Members of the working group reported to Viktor Zubkov that a number of criminal cases have been opened that involve financial violations, some in the housing and utilities sector and some in the financial sector. Some cases concern money laundering through fly-by-night companies. The participants considered proposals to draw up a list of priority regulatory acts that need to be drafted to improve the efforts to uncover and curb illegal transactions.

Following the meeting, the first deputy prime minister issued an instruction to prepare, within a two-week period, a draft federal law containing clearer requirements for company registration, liquidation enforcement, and tax authorities' powers to suspend the operation of suspicious companies. The draft will be discussed at a meeting with the government.

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The Interdepartmental Working Group, set up by Viktor Zubkov, includes the heads of the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring, the Bank of Russia, the Prosecutor General's Office, the Investigative Committee, the Federal Security Service, the Ministry of the Interior, the Federal Drug Control Service, the Federal Tax Service, the Federal Customs Service, and the Federal Financial Markets Service.

The group's goal is to improve the cooperative efforts to uncover and interdict financial transactions aimed at legalising criminal revenues (including through fly-by-night firms), financing terrorism, tax and custom duty evasion, and obtaining funds from corrupt practices.

The group has already met twice during January and February 2012.