14 mei 2022
01:00
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The anti-money laundering cell intercepted a monster amount of 2.336 billion euros last year. That comes from more than 1,200 cases that the cell found difficult enough to pass on to the court.
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The money detected comes from all kinds of illegal practices, such as fraud (628 million euros), organized crime (549 million), serious tax fraud (486 million), the illicit trade in weapons and other goods (382 million), social fraud (149 million ), and from important but smaller flows of money from, among other things, corruption and terrorism. This is stated in the annual report of the anti-money laundering cell for 2021.
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Luxembourg was both the main destination (34%) and origin (43.5%) of all suspicious money flows detected in our country.
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The investigations of the court must determine who was hiding behind the billions of suspected euros and in which files there is sufficient evidence to proceed to prosecution. The anti-money laundering unit only filed preventive opposition to certain suspicious transactions 44 times last year, for a total of only 7 million euros.
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Bank alert
In one exceptionally large case, a scam with a dubious supply of mouth masks could be prevented last year. A Belgian bank was very vigilant about this. She was able to stop a payment of 560 million euros. Because other suspicious transactions previously took place on the same account, the anti-money laundering unit passed the file on to the court.
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The anti-money laundering unit got wind of the suspicious money flows thanks to a record number of reports from all sectors and professional groups that have to report suspicious transactions in our country. There were 46,330 reports of suspicious money flows. That is almost 15,000 more than in 2020 and almost twice as many as in 2019.
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The Royal Belgian Football Association and three top football clubs also made money laundering reports for the first time last year.
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Almost half of the reports (21,624) came from the banks, a record. It is striking that the banks have declared a lot of ‘old black money’ from customers. This has to do with ‘look-back operations’ that the banks carried out at the request of the National Bank of Belgium. In June last year, the National Bank sent out a letter calling on the banks to be vigilant about black money that ended up in accounts in Belgium, but was never regularized by paying taxes and fines. Although that money has often been in the accounts for a long time, the banks have to conduct internal audits about it (look-back analyses) and declare the old dirty money to the anti-money laundering unit. The banks must complete those audits by June 30.
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Notaries and Bpost
In addition to the banks and payment institutions, notaries (1,214 reports by 298 notaries) and Bpost (1,082 reports) also reported more suspicious transactions last year.
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That number is not nearly as large, but the ten reports that the Royal Belgian Football Association made for the first time last year are striking. Three professional top football clubs also reported suspicious money flows to the anti-money laundering unit for the first time last year. After the fraud scandal erupted in Belgian football at the end of 2018, the professional clubs and the football association have been obliged to make such declarations since last year.
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As in previous years, few reports were received from certain sectors. In a whole year there were only four notifiers in the legal profession, eleven in the gambling sector and two in the diamond trade.
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