Targeting tax crime: A whole-of-government approach - February 2011

Reporting of suspicious activities to AUSTRAC continues to rise

The number of suspicious activity reports provided to the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC), under Australia's anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regime, increased markedly in 2009-10.

AUSTRAC received over 47,000 suspicious activity reports in 2009-10, representing an increase of 46% on the total received in the previous year.¹

Reports about suspicious activities are a vital component assisting AUSTRAC in its work with other agencies. For example, the reports could give the ATO a lead to identify and investigate tax evasion, or law enforcement agencies may use them to investigate terrorism financing, money laundering, drug trafficking, people smuggling and other serious crimes.

The increased number of reports has had a major impact on the volume of information about suspicious activities that AUSTRAC has been able to share with its partner agencies. Over 58,000 disseminations about suspicious activities were made by AUSTRAC to partner agencies in 2009-10. This represents a 34% increase on the number of disseminations made the previous year.²

AUSTRAC has focused in recent years on educating reporting entities on their obligations under anti-money laundering legislation, including the need to report suspicious activities. The increase in reporting demonstrates that awareness of suspicious activities among reporting entities is improving, which in turn enables AUSTRAC to increase the support it provides to its partner agencies.

The reports submitted show significant increases in suspicion in tax-related categories such as:

• industry/occupation of interest
• country of interest
• advanced fee frauds/scams
• superannuation-related issues
• refusal by the customer to show identification/complete transaction reports
• avoiding reporting obligations
• unusual account activity
• unusually large cash transactions
• suspicious behaviour and behaviour inconsistent with the customer's profile.

What is a reporting entity?

Generally a reporting entity includes banks and other financial institutions, remittance service providers, foreign exchange dealers, bullion dealers and gambling service providers. For further information visit AUSTRAC www.austrac.gov.au