The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), a unit of customs, received almost 300,000 suspected money laundering reports last year.
(Photo: dpa)
Frankfurt The number of suspected money laundering reports has skyrocketed in the past year. The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), a special force at customs, registered almost 300,000 such statements in 2021. This was reported by the “Börsen-Zeitung” with reference to the FIU annual report. The “Börsen-Zeitung” has the report.
This means that in 2021 there were more than twice as many suspicious activity reports. Specifically, last year it was 298,500 after 144,000 in 2000. 97 percent of the incoming reports come from the financial sector, ie from banks and other financial and payment service providers. The anti-money laundering unit forwarded 40,200 of the reports to investigative authorities.
The FIU attributes the particularly significant increase to legal changes: Since spring 2021, all criminal offenses have been considered “predicate offences” of money laundering, i.e. possible preconditions for the associated financial transactions being punishable. In addition, a regulation to combat money laundering in the real estate sector also imposed reporting obligations on professional groups such as notaries.