Anti-Money Laundering explained (AML) March 24, 2017

Anti-Money Laundering explained (AML)

What is aml?

Money laundering is procedure in which criminals transfer the profits of crime and corruption into legitimate assets. There are many ways criminals can launder their money without the assistance of the financial sector but in reality there are billions of pounds that are going through financial institutions yearly.

Crimes such as prostitution, distribution of drugs, selling of illegal firearms and fraudulent insurance claims generate money that can be laundered to make it clean again. It is very easy for a drug dealer to go into establishments such as the department store Harrods and buy high price goods which they later return for a refund which means there money has now been laundered through a reputable company and is legal money. If anyone is to question the reason a person has that money they can say they have received it from Harrods.

Britain is currently ranked in a similar position alongside Afghanistan, Russia and Colombia for countries that need to do more to tackle money laundering. Around 15 billion of dirty money is accumulated from organised crime in the UK each year, crimes such as credit card fraud, cash smuggling and bureaux de change fraud are increasing on a yearly basis.

Anti-money laundering regulations apply to different business sectors which include accountants, estate agents and financial businesses. Anti-money regulations require that you put in place some controls to prevent money laundering such as:

Checking whether your business is at risk of being used by criminals to launder money.
Always gathering enough compliance on your customer.
Monitoring the customers’ business activities and reporting anything suspicious to the National Crime agency.
Ensuring all your employees is aware of the regulations and that you have all the training available.

There are many ways to spot whether someone is laundering money through your organisation, it is important that they are stopped in their tracks to ensure your company is not involved in illegal activity.

Some of the ways are:

The money launder might use a third person firm to avoid answering too many questions, if your firm doesn’t have expertise in the particular area then be sure to consult an expert in that area to ensure that your firm is fully protected.
If the client changes instructions at the very last minute such as ending a transaction with no reason, money coming in from multiple sources or transferring money to various other sources.

If you are looking to further your career in policing anti money laundering or looking to get into the career, why not attend a anti money laundering course to give a boost of knowledge. The courses London TFE offer are short so they can be taken with convenience, the course also give you knowledge on all the latest regulations regarding the anti-money laundering.