THE Bureau of Customs (BOC) is ramping up its cross-border enforcement efforts to ensure the Philippines maintains progress in combating money laundering and terrorist financing, following its removal from the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list.

Last week, the FATF officially struck out the Philippines from the grey list — or increased monitoring — recognizing the country's strengthened financial safeguards and compliance with global anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) standards.