Suspicious financial transactions increase by 55% in 2017

The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) at the National Bureau of Investigation received over 48,000 reports on suspicious transactions in 2017, which was 55 percent higher than the previous year, said a press release.

The growth in the number of reports is due to the activity of the parties subject to the reporting obligation in the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing and the co-operation between the FIU and the reporting entities in improving the contents of the report.

The reports made by gambling entities increased 85 percent from the previous year, but those made by banks gave the best results as processed by the FIU.

In 2017 the FIU detected 42 cases for which new criminal investigations were launched. Furthermore, the FIU provided information to more than 1,200 criminal investigations or prevention and detection of crimes. The number of such cases increased 28 percent compared to the previous year.

After the amendment of law in 2015, data has been provided in 985 cases. The Tax Administration has processed a little less than two thirds of them. Relating to the launched tax audits, a tax audit report has been approved and tax imposed in 106 cases. The total value of tax imposed on the basis of tax audits triggered by data provisions from the FIU is about 6.6 million euros.

In 2017 the FIU gave 34 orders on suspending transactions. The value of the given orders was about two million euros, and with them authorities recovered 730,000 euros as criminal proceeds.

The terrorist financing and freezing of funds team at the FIU was busy mainly with the individuals returning from the crisis areas and the knife attack in Turku.

The FIU received 27 reports which the reporting entity had classified as possible terrorist financing. In total, examination of 105 cases relating to terrorist financing was started.

The enhanced exchange of information furthered cooperation with the Finnish Security Intelligence Service and other authorities.

In 2017 the National Bureau of Investigation made one new decision on freezing funds in order to prevent terrorism. At the end of the year, nine decisions made on the basis of the Freezing Act were in force. The clear difference compared to the year 2016 (46 decisions) is due to revoking the freezing orders relating to ETA organisation.