PING!
Posted on 10/04/2006 2:38:30 PM PDT by GMMAC
$5 billion found in suspicious deals
Cnews.canoe.ca
October 4, 2006
By JOHN WARD
OTTAWA (CP) - The country's money-laundering watchdog uncovered more than $5 billion in suspicious deals last year, including $250 million in suspected terrorist financing.
The dollar figure was more than twice what was found the year before.
The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, better known as Fintrac, said the growth was due to a deliberate strategy of hunting large-scale, money-laundering schemes.
In all, Fintrac tipped police and the federal intelligence service to 168 suspicious cases, up from 142 the year before, the agency said in its annual report tabled in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
"It was a banner year," said Horst Intscher, Fintrac's director.
Of last year's cases, 134 involved suspected money laundering, 33 were linked to suspected terrorist financing and one involved both.
The average value of each case was almost $30 million last year, up from $14.4 million the year before.
It's unclear how many of the cases resulted in arrests because it's up to police and prosecutors to report that information.
Intscher said the six-year-old agency is maturing into an effective tool against dirty money.
"One of the things that we did about a year and a bit ago was to consciously focus our efforts at targeting larger and more complex networks and that certainly paid off."
He said the cases are getting bigger as the agency hones its analytical skills and widens its database.
"We have produced a number of significant cases," he said. "We have 16 of the cases in this year exceeding $50 million in transactions each, some of them going well over $100 million so what we're doing is not just increasing the number of cases, but we're also pushing out to identify larger networks, more complex networks."
The complexity is outlined in a two-page chart in the report, which outlines a $25 million money-laundering case shorn of all identifying details. The chart and two pages of explanatory text detail an intricate web of money movements among various companies and across borders, though shell companies and various bank accounts.
"We've seen a number of networks that are very adept at mimicking the financial transaction behaviour of very legitimate organizations," Intscher said.
"It takes quite a lot more analysis and quite a lot more digging sometimes to be able to link them to illicit activities."
Fintrac requires organizations and people who handle major transactions - from banks and credit unions to securities dealers, foreign exchange dealers, real-estate firms and even casinos - to keep tabs on who is using their services and report questionable transactions.
They must also report any electronic international transfer of more than $10,000 and any cash transactions over $10,000.
On Tuesday, a Senate committee recommended that money-laundering laws be changed to bring lawyers and jewellers under Fintrac scrutiny and to allow greater regulation of so-called white ATMs and cheque-cashing and payroll-loan companies.
The government gave notice Wednesday that it will bring in legislation on Thursday to amend the money-laundering laws.
Intscher said that bill will include some of the Senate suggestions as well as recommendations from other reviews of the law.
He welcomed measures to expand Fintrac's reach.
"The more entities that are involved in value transfer that you can bring under coverage of the legislation, the more effective our information reach becomes."
While the Senate committee suggested money laundering involves tens of billions of dollars a year, it said it couldn't find a hard number. Intscher said there's no way of knowing how much is out there.
"Crime, and particularly money laundering, is essentially a clandestine activity," he said. "It's very difficult to make a direct estimate as to the scope of that.
"What I can tell you is kind of what we're seeing and what we see continues to grow year after year."
PING!
Ping!
Good work Canada!
I thought you might like this post.
:-)
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