There has been a tremendous increase in the reports of suspicious money movement submitted by banks and betting companies in Denmark which has triggered the activities of anti-money laundering authorities to scrutinize banks in the Nordic region. A critical analysis of the reports of suspicious transactions submitted to Denmark’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) since 2013 shows a significant rise of about 10 folds to reach 53, 454 cases in 2019. The Europol had said that the major criminal activities which use money-laundering to hide the original source of money include arms, narcotics trade, human trafficking, cybercrime, and forgery.
Despite the effort made by the regulatory agency to combat money laundering, A national auditing agency on Friday said that the agency’ efforts have not been effective and its systems have deficiencies, the agency is also inefficient in processing reports and forwarding them to the appropriate channels for necessary actions. However, the head of FIU, Jorgen Anderson has responded to the criticism, saying that the unit had improved its IT resources and is currently hiring 600 more compliance workers since it has been allocated more funds. Banks have also invested in a technology software that automatically identifies new customers and teach the computer to detect suspicious patterns in financial transactions, and has been confirmed to be effective. Justice Minister in a statement said there is a need to up efforts against money laundering and should start by assessing the availability of sufficient resources.
