Reports of suspicious transactions double amid terror fears
THE number of suspicious transactions being reported by financial institutions has doubled in the past five years, a conference on money laundering and terror financing has heard.
The head of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau, Detective Chief Superintendent Pat Lordan, said that while the majority of the 24,000 suspicious transactions reported last year turned out to be perfectly legal, financial institutions still needed to be vigilant.
His comments, at a Compliance Ireland conference in Dublin yesterday on the introduction of the latest EU anti-money laundering directive, come just months after the first ever Irish conviction of an Isil sympathiser for fundraising.
Det Chief Supt Lordan told delegates from financial institutions that a failure to report a suspicious transaction could be “the rock we’ll perish on”.
Banks and other regulated institutions are required by legislation to make suspicious transaction reports (STRs) if they have concerns about a transaction or notice unusual activity in a bank account.
“Whether you are in a credit union, a big bank or a small bank, it could be the nugget of information that you send into us in an STR that will solve a problem for us or another country,” he said.
Speaking separately on the margins of the conference, Det Chief Supt Lordan told the Irish Independent “a single digit percentage” of the STRs received would be categorised as relating to terror financing.
“But they would all be gone through in great detail because of the critical nature of them,” he said.
Grahame White, a former senior member of specialist operations in New Scotland Yard’s Financial Investigations Unit, told the conference that bank accounts can contain key indicators that someone has been radicalised or is plotting a terror attack.
Mr White was the lead financial investigator in the 7/7 London bombings and was involved in operations against Hamas and al-Qa’ida.
He said common indicators had been found in the bank accounts of Islamic extremists and other types of terrorists who had perpetrated attacks in Europe and the US in recent years.
These included credit and debit card expenditure on religious books and clothing, the spending of large sums on activities such as paintballing, and the purchase of certain types of outdoor equipment.
Watchlist
Another common indicator is the taking out of loans or life assurance policies.
Mr White said that a single piece of expenditure in isolation might not mean anything, but could form an important part of the overall picture.
He also said “about 99pc” of terrorists have never appeared on a watchlist prior to carrying out an attack.
Joe Shannon, chief executive of Compliance Ireland, said Ireland was lagging behind other European countries when it came to combating money laundering and online fraud and risked EU fines over the delays in implementing the new directive.