Anti-money laundering cell barely intercepts drug money, despite record number of nearly 54,000 reports | Interior

Last year, the anti-money laundering cell received a record number of 53,923 reports about suspicious money flows in our country, ranging from proceeds from fraud and social fraud to corruption, terrorism and organized crime. For example, the anti-money laundering cell has been able to signal more than 1.6 billion euros in suspicious money to the court. Barely 18.5 million euros was drug money, writes ‘De Tijd’ on Saturday. The newspaper was able to view the new annual report of the anti-money laundering cell.

By far the largest number of reports, 52 percent, came from the banks, the newspaper outlines. Banks have invested heavily in detection systems in recent years, says Isabelle Marchand of the Febelfin banking federation in De Tijd. “That is now yielding concrete results. The banks take their role as gatekeepers in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing to heart and help to fight crime.”

The anti-money laundering unit passed on 1,257 cases to the court. Together they accounted for more than 1.6 billion euros in suspicious money. In 2021, that amount was more than 2.3 billion euros higher. The largest amounts related to serious tax fraud, organized crime, social fraud, corruption and fraud. Only 370,000 euros still had to do with terrorism, De Tijd writes. According to the newspaper, it is striking that only 1 percent or 18.5 million euros were directly related to the drug trade. Drug trafficking as an additional crime in 8 percent of the total number of cases.

Unexplained sums of cash

“In contrast to the drug trade and drug violence, the financial flows behind it are much less visible,” says Philippe de Koster, the chairman of the anti-money laundering cell, in De Tijd. “Judging by the seizures, however, these are gigantic amounts, some of which also circulate in our country. The reports that the cell receives, which are immediately linked to drug trafficking, usually concern local dealers or swindlers who are in the spotlight for depositing unexplained sums of cash. The amounts in those files are rather limited.”

The anti-money laundering cell also points out that drug money also flows to terrorists

“The amounts we find in files in which drug money was laundered through real estate, business or gambling are also not of the same order as the amounts circulating in the professional money laundering networks used by drug traffickers. We should especially look at those professional money laundering networks, which are separate from the drug trade, to detect the billions of revenues generated annually in Belgium by the import of cocaine via the port of Antwerp and the drug trade,” said De Koster in the newspaper.

The anti-money laundering cell also points out that drug money also flows to terrorists and is also used to bribe port staff, lawyers, managers of logistics and transport companies, customs officers and police officers.

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