Money-laundering rules welcomed

CUSTOMS officers have welcomed new EU rules to combat money-laundering, which come into effect today.

Under the regulations, people leaving or entering the EU have to inform customs officials if they are carrying €10,000 or more in cash.

EU Taxation and Customs Commissioner Lásló Kovács said the regulations would help fight money-laundering and the financing of terrorism.

Customs official Michael Colgan said they had systems set up to implement the regulations from today.

“It’s an additional development in combating money-laundering. How effective it will be is hard to say, only time will tell. We will see how many reports come in and see how useful they are.”

In the Irish context, the regulation will cover people carrying the threshold amount of cash from Ireland to a non-EU country, or vice versa.

The regulations cover not just euro but also equivalent amounts in other currencies or easily convertible assets such as cheques that are not crossed.

Mr Colgan said they were setting up a system whereby there would be a log of information on all cash reports and that this information would be made available to the Financial Intelligence Unit in the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation.

He stressed that Customs already operate a sophisticated, and successful, system for confiscating cash suspected of being for the purposes of criminality.

Prior to 2005, Customs officers could seize cash they believed was connected to drug trafficking. As a result of increased powers under an amendment to the Proceeds of Crime Act in 2005, officers were also empowered to seized cash linked to any form of criminality.

However, Customs officers must have grounds or suspicion before they can seize cash in such a case.

Last year, officers made 11 seizures of suspected criminal cash totalling €725,000.

Mr Colgan said some of these seizures developed into a money laundering investigation and the conviction of a number of people.

“It’s difficult for criminals to use banks in the normal way, so cash is the lifeblood of organised crime.

“If you can stop the movement of cash, you can seriously curtail organised crime.”