law enforcement
Washing our dirty laundry in public
International organised crime costs the UK £24 billion every year with networks behaving like nation states or large corporations, according to UK Home Secretary Teresa May, who is establishing a Joint Money Laundering Intelligence Taskforce.
Mrs May said: “The most sophisticated international criminal networks now operate in a manner which was previously the preserve of nation states or large corporations. Some have vast illicit wealth and they seek to wield state-like commercial and political power. Serious and organised crime threatens the security of our borders, the integrity of – and public confidence in – our criminal justice system and the security and legitimacy of our financial markets and institutions. It places legitimate businesses at a disadvantage.”
Mrs May said cyber-crime threatens confidence in our online economy, undermines our prosperity and our economic growth.
“Overseas, organised crime threatens the stability of countries of strategic importance to our national security and undermines their ability to tackle a range of threats from terrorism through to major health crises’.
“We want the UK to be the best place in the world in which to do business and we want London to be the pre-eminent global financial hub. Yet we know that many hundreds of billions of dollars in illicit funds are laundered by organised criminals across the world, including within the UK.
“The scale and complexity of this issue requires more than just a law enforcement response. It requires active partnership between Government and industry.
Along with the steps we have taken so far to identify and catch those who abuse the UK’s financial systems by laundering the proceeds of their crimes, including the assistance we are providing to the Arab Spring countries and Ukraine to recover the proceeds of corruption, we are now officially launching the Joint Money Laundering Intelligence Taskforce.”
The new Taskforce, she said, will see representatives from banks and law enforcement working together to share intelligence and gain a better understanding of the threat picture – how illicit funds are moved and stored, and how law enforcement can best target these criminals.
“The banks will continue to submit Suspicious Activity Reports and use the new Financial Crime Alerts Service developed by the British Banking Association. The Taskforce will enhance existing mechanisms by allowing them to also share information on a case-by-case basis with the National Crime Agency that, in isolation, may not be considered suspicious but, when considered alongside other relevant information, can be used to detect a pattern of behaviour or a network of criminality.
Working in partnership is how we can strengthen our protection against serious and organised crime and, most importantly, disrupt and prosecute those who threaten our national security and prosperity.”
