FIU campaigns hard against ‘black’ cash
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has cottoned on to some major money laundering rackets and has stepped up vigilance on black money circulating in the island, senior officials say. The FIU, an arm of the Central Bank (CB) has been following black money trails for some time now, officials said.
This week it ran advertisements targeting Designated Non-Finance Businesses (DNFBs) on their obligation to report any transaction where there’s reasonable ground to suspect that the transaction may be related to anything that steps on Section 33 of the Financial Transactions Reporting Act (FTRA).
CB officials told the Business Times that FIU has done a risk assessment of Sri Lanka which has shown that the country is at high risk of money laundering. “Especially when buying immovable property (lands, houses, apartments, etc.) this happens,” an official told the Business Times noting that the country still faces numerous money laundering threats, emanating from various illegal activities. This was established by a senior banker who said that money laundering is popular in the property sector. DNFBs are subject to compliance, legal and reputation risk owing to non-detection of their bank accounts, other banking products and delivery channels being misused by the criminals to launder money, he said.
It’s learnt that the FIU is examining some cases that have come through certain banks and finance companies.The categories that FIU is targeting are DNFBs that deal in individual or collection portfolio management, investing, administering or managing funds or money on behalf of others, safe keeping and administration of cash or liquid securities on behalf of others, safe custody, trustee administration or a superannuation, casinos, gambling houses, lotteries, real estate agents, gem dealers, lawyers, notaries, etc. and off shore units.
In the event the offence is committed by a body corporate, then every director or other officers of that body shall be guilty of money laundering. “As such it becomes extremely important for directors and responsible officers of companies, partners of partnerships and officials and members of unincorporated bodies to regularly monitor and investigate any suspicious activities that may happen in their organisations,” the official said.