LONDON— An analysis of more than 1,600 anti-money laundering (AML) events recorded across the U.K. in the last decade shows, perhaps not surprisingly, that money laundering is the most prevalent issue (27.5%).
In its 2024 Money Laundering and Financial Crime Stats Report, SmartSearch inspected 1,664 AML events in the U.K. alone and found that while just over a quarter of the U.K.’s crimes and issues pertain to money laundering (27.5%), this was closely followed by AML compliance failures (23.9%) – which beat drug trafficking (19.8%) and financial fraud (13.4%) to the top spot, The CFO reported.
Other Related Events
AML events include recorded crimes or issues relating to money laundering, drug trafficking, financial fraud, AML compliance failures, violations of AML laws, regulatory breaches, reporting failures and international sanctions, The CFO noted.
According to Martin Cheek, managing director of SmartSearch, the stats highlight the urgent need for regulated businesses to have adequate AML processes and software in place to detect criminal behavior. If not, they risk facing multi-million pound fines, punishments which could include prison time, and enabling criminals to carry out illegal activities, like cleaning dirty cash, The CFO said.
While just under a quarter of the U.K.’s AML events relate to compliance failures (23.9%), this doesn’t include reporting failures (2.1%) and violations of AML laws (1.5%), The CFO added.
New Stablecoin Regs
Separately, the U.K. government will introduce new regulations for stablecoins and crypto staking services within the next six months, according to U.K. Economic Secretary to the Treasury Bim Afolami.
The Treasury made a commitment in October to clarify regulations in the crypto domain by 2024. Since then it's had a number of consultations on fiat-backed stablecoins and the enactment of the Financial Services and Markets Act, Decrypt reported.
“Market experts have been predicting that fiat-backed stablecoins will fall under existing payment laws, enhancing the financial regulator's oversight on asset-backed digital tokens,” Decrypt said.
The U.K. government plans to categorize staking, a mechanism for token holders to earn rewards for supporting blockchain operations, in a way that avoids collective investment classification, Decrypt said.
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