According to the leaked data,$US44 million ($60m) of transactions flowing to or from the CBA were red flagged by other banks.Credit:Louie Douvis
Data released by the ICIJ on Monday shows more than $US174 million of possibly dirty money flowed through Australian banks. Macquarie accounted for 72 per cent of the suspicious transactions by value,or $US123 million.
The Commonwealth Bank was the next frequently named Australian bank in the data leak,with $US44 million of transactions flowing to or from the CBA,which were red flagged by other banks. ANZ Bank,when including its Hong Kong branch,made up $US4.7 million.
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The three banks at the centre of the"FinCEN Files"leak:Bank of New York Mellon (BNY),Barclays and Standard Charted,all filed the reports with anti-money laundering authorities in the US as part of their reporting requirements.
Banks around the world are required to report suspicious transactions to anti-money laundering regulators to stamp out dirty money dealings,including the funding of terrorism and organised crime activities,such as drug dealing and tax evasion.
It is not clear whether the Australian banks reported the transactions to the local money laundering regulator AUSTRAC. Anti-money laundering laws dictate that any payment over $10,000 must be reported to authorities as potentially suspicious as well as transactions that are indicative of potential crimes,such as an account making several smaller payments to avoid the $10,000 detection threshold.
CBAsettled a massive civil case brought by AUSTRAC over the bank's failure to report suspicious transactions for $700 million in 2018. It is not clear whether the transactions included in the ICIJ report formed part of the financial intelligence agency's case.