The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has reported a total of 958 suspicious transaction reports/suspicious activity reports (STRs/SARs) at the end of September 2022, with a total monetary value of $1,937,211,057.
This revelation was made in parliament yesterday by Finance Minister Colm Imbert.
The activities related to these reports were tax evasion, fraud, money laundering and drug trafficking.
Imbert broke down the figures, saying 844 ( valued at $1,586,346,802) were completed transactions and 195 ( valued at $350,864,255) were attempted transactions.
He said: “This represented a 24 percent decrease in completed transactions and a 68 percent decrease in attempted transactions when compared to the previous reporting period.”
Imbert said 16 STRs/SARs contained both completed and attempted transactions.
“Suspicious activity ranked the highest among the five most common reasons for the submission of STRs/SARs to the FIUTT.”
Imbert said, “This was followed by tax evasion (211 persons), fraud (196 persons), money laundering (155 persons) and drug Trafficking (35 persons).”
These accounted for 94 percent of the total STRs/SARs received by the FIU and 60 per cent of the total monetary value of all STRs/SARs submitted.
An analysis of 212 STRs/SARs generated a total of 69 intelligence reports (65 suspected money laundering cases and four suspected terrorism financing cases.
Imbert said: “Of these, 33 were submitted to local competent authorities whilst 12 were shared with foreign law enforcement agencies and FIUs.”
The FIU received 16 requests from foreign authorities up to September 30, 2022.
Imbert said, “These requests featured a total of 85 subjects in contrast to the 26 recorded in the previous year.”
The suspected criminal conduct in the majority of cases was financing of terrorism related, with four of the requests seeking intelligence on 34 subjects.
Requests the FIU received from foreign authorities originated mainly from the Caribbean, the Middle East and Europe.
The FIU also disseminated 12 spontaneous disclosures to foreign FIUs and law enforcement agencies, compared to six in 2021.
Imbert said, “The spontaneous dissemination of intelligence was linked to the suspected criminal conduct related to fraud and money laundering, accounting for 83 per cent and 17 percent (respectively ) of the total number of spontaneous intelligence reports disseminated, respectively.”
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