Zones designed to lighten customs oversight also lighten scrutiny: the FATF found free trade zones vulnerable to laundering through relaxed supervision, minimal ownership information and trade documentation that changes between entry and exit.
The rating above is indicative — it reflects inherent risk as assessed in the published frameworks, not a verdict on any business. Entire industries serve these sectors as business as usual; the rating your firm actually applies comes from its own business-wide risk assessment, where the sector factor combines with your customer base, controls and risk appetite.
The FATF's study of free trade zones (2010) found systemic weaknesses: inadequate AML/CFT safeguards, relaxed oversight by domestic authorities, and zone authorities that request little or no ownership information when registering firms. Goods can be repackaged, relabelled and re-documented inside a zone — the raw material of trade-based money laundering.
Free ports storing high-value goods add a second dimension: art, jewels and collectibles can change hands repeatedly inside storage without crossing a customs line — one reason the EU's cultural-goods import regime and the AMLD's freeport provisions exist, and why the European Parliament has separately studied money-laundering and tax-evasion risks in EU free ports.
Firms whose clients trade through free zones should treat zone legs of a supply chain as low-visibility segments: corroborate documentation across the zone boundary, identify who owns zone entities, and weigh the zone's oversight standards in the risk assessment. Sector risk combines with geography, the customer’s profile and the product to set the overall rating — and every client still needs sanctions, PEP and adverse-media screening on the parties themselves.
