Jose Carapinha

Dr. José Carapinha has been working as legal counsel for the Macau Administration for the past 35 years. 

After an initial period of seven years in the Legislative Affairs Office where he was in charge of legal drafting having participated intensively in the approval by the Macau Government of the Macau’s Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code, amongst other projects, he joined the Monetary Authority of Macau in June 1998 where he became a permanent staff. 

In the Monetary Authority of Macau he progressively oriented his expertise towards the money laundering and terrorism financing area having participated extensively in the representation of the Macau Government in the works of the Asia Pacific Group in Money Laundering (APG) since 2003. 

When the Financial Intelligence Office (GIF in the Portuguese acronym) was created in 2006 he was seconded to this Office in February 2007 while continuing to be a permanent staff of the Monetary Authority. Since joining GIF he continued his work in the AML/CFT area participating extensively in the representation of Macau in international organizations such as the Asia Pacific Group in Money Laundering (APG), the Egmont Group of FIUs and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). 

Since 2003 he is qualified as an assessor for the APG and he participated in the mutual evaluation team of East Timor that was carried out by the APG in December 2011. He was also a member of the evaluation team of Mongolia in the 3rd round of mutual evaluations for the APG carried out in 2017, Indonesia in 2023 and Argentina in 2024, these last two for FATF. He has also been acting as reviewer for the APG and FATF on some follow up reports in the context of the follow up process applicable to assessed jurisdictions. 

He also participated in the Asia Pacific Regional Review Group (APRRG) of the International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) of FATF having been in charge of the progress made by some jurisdictions in his capacity as primary reviewer from May 2011 to September 2014, and is currently performing identical functions since May 2020 to present in the Asia Pacific Joint Group (APJG) of the ICRG of FATF. 

He has participated as well in his capacity as expert in some high level missions carried out by the APG in the context of the follow up procedures of some jurisdictions of the Asia Pacific region, namely East Timor and Vietnam. 

He is Co-Chair of the Mutual Evaluation Committee (previously Mutual Evaluations Working Group) of the APG since its creation in 2013.