Martin Cheek, managing director of SmartSearch, explains why lenders need to be more vigilant than ever to the threat of money laundering, especially in today’s digital age.
Many think of it as a ‘victimless crime’ but money laundering is anything but. In fact, it is estimated that the vast majority of the proceeds of serious and organised crime – from drugs and cybercrime through to people trafficking – is laundered through UK banks and other UK business.
The National Risk Assessment (NRA) says there is ‘a marked overlap’ between money laundering and terrorist financing, while the National Crime Agency’s (NCA) says previous estimations of the scale of the problem of money laundering in the UK have been significantly underestimated.
According to the NCA, previous figures of £90 billion in the UK could be way off the mark, while the International Money Laundering Information Bureau (IMLIB) states that money laundering is the world’s third largest industry by value.
Read the full article from MFG (Mortgage Finance Gazette) here.
