Crime groups aim for finance sector

Gary Hughes
April 02, 2007

ORGANISED crime networks could infiltrate the mainstream financial sector to run money-laundering schemes from inside legitimate financial institutions, Australia's federal anti-money laundering agency is warning.

The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre said tighter international regulation of the financial sector was making it harder for criminals posing as legitimate customers to launder money through financial institutions.
"There is a risk that this will lead to attempts by organised crime to infiltrate sections of the financial sector or particular enterprises to assist with the laundering of criminal proceeds and this risk should not be underestimated," Austrac says in a submission to a federal parliamentary inquiry on organised crime.

Successful money-laundering enabled criminals to exert their influence through the legitimate economy and made it more difficult for authorities to separate proceeds of crime from legal business profits.

The economy could be damaged if legitimate businesses were forced to compete with enterprises being secretly subsidised by profits from organised crime, Austrac says in the submission to the inquiry on the future impact of organised crime on Australia.

According to Austrac, criminals are gaining the same sort of advantages from globalisation as big business.

"Instantaneous electronic transfer of funds across national borders through global financial systems offer criminal groups the advantage of both obfuscating financial trails and making the recovery of proceeds of crime by authorities protracted," it says.

New financial products, such as debit cards that allowed money to be stored on them without it being linked to a person's name or bank account, could also be used to secretly transfer funds across borders.

In a submission to the same inquiry, the Australian Crime Commission says organised crime is continuing to seek "legitimate involvement" in key industries such as transport, security, finance and telecommunication. "This involvement is designed to plan, support, conceal and facilitate their criminal activities," the ACC says.

Criminal networks were also taking advantage of advanced computer technology, including desktop publishing systems to produce high-quality forged documents, and exploiting advances in the internet.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21487465-2702,00.html