AUSTRAC Chief Executive Nicole Rose has said that the Australian banks have stepped up self-reporting breaches to AUSTRAC by a staggering 70% since AUSTRAC launched a civil action against Commonwealth Bank of Australia two years ago.
This comes after the announcement by AUSTRAC that Australian banks will be facing severe penalties within next six months for not complying with money laundering guidelines.
“I can say that we will have more enforcement action in the next six months – warnings all the way through to civil penalty – because of the increased intelligence that we’ve been receiving. There will be appropriate action,” Rose said in an interview on Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
No targeted names were provided by Rose. Although CBA in 2018 was accused of breaching thousands of violations and mainly for filing transaction reports late. Rose has said that there does not seem to be any “deliberate” breaches of anti-money laundering violations.
The Australian banks are not the only organizations being targeted severely for money laundering, casinos are right in the mix too. Casino Resorts recently has been accused of allowing Chinese High Rollers to launder money.
“Those probes were not specifically related to recent media reports claiming that Crown Resorts hired travel agents with ties to drug traffickers to bring Chinese gamblers into Australia and knowingly laundered money at its casinos,” Rose said, “The big casinos are very good at complying with our anti-money laundering/countering terrorism financing laws and they put a great deal of effort into ensuring that they do.”