NCIS Urges Cooperation In Money Laundering Fight

by Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com, London

24 September 2001

The UK's National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) warned last week that international initiatives to combat money laundering, tax evasion, and terrorist activity will fail unless greater cooperation between financial institutions and the intelligence services is achieved.

Although the NCIS, and other financial intelligence units throughout Europe have in the past concentrated mainly on organised crime and financial fraud, the service says that it is ready and willing to join the most recent efforts to increase coordination and reporting of criminal activity between countries. 'If the government decides that the NCIS should be involved, we have the mechanisms and experience,' a spokesman told the Reuters news service recently.

However, the NCIS complains that despite recent rule changes regarding reporting requirements for suspicious transactions, some banks and other organisations, for example lawyers and accountants, are failing to cooperate. Although the intelligence service received 18,500 suspicious transaction reports last year, an increase of 27%, a staggering two-thirds of the 500 banks active in the United Kingdom made no reports at all.

'People are not doing enough reporting of suspicious transactions,' said the spokesman on Thursday. 'Some institutions do well but others should be under no illusion - they are making a direct contribution to the financial viability of criminals.'

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