Financial criminals around the world have exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to their benefit in a variety of ways. In this context, the Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) of Italy and Armenia co-led a project titled “Financial Intelligence Units’ (FIUs) Role in the Fight Against Money Laundering of Corruption Proceeds (Within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic)”. The data from this project will help both the public and the private sectors to tackle corruption-related crimes.
Financial intelligence is an important tool to identify and disrupt corruption. Actionable intelligence can be shared securely through the EG network to effectively tackle corruption. As such, the FIUs’ project analyzed the information received from 39 Egmont Group (EG) member FIUs about identified corruption-related risks and mitigation strategies, case studies, lessons learned, best practices, and future challenges.
The project has identified emerging risks, threats, and vulnerabilities related to corruption. It shares and explains the best practices that different FIUs have applied during the pandemic to handle corruption. The project also provides a list of the different mechanisms that reporting entities can use to identify corruption-related suspicious financial activity. Overall, it provides a succinct analysis of the information that various FIUs supplied, including their organizational and operational responses to corruption-related crimes. Jurisdictions and their AML/CFT teams can utilize the analyses presented in this project to prepare themselves for similar crimes in the future.
Source: Egmont Group