The National Bank of Ukraine continues to provide the law enforcement bodies with information that may be indicative of organized criminal activities and can be used to to detect, stop and prevent such activities, obtained during the compliance monitoring inspections and compliance with FX legislation inspections.
Based on the results of compliance monitoring as of 1 April 2018, the NBU has sent 18 letters to law enforcement bodies to report on suspicious financial transactions by customers of 21 banks totalling over UAH 16.3 billion, USD 80.5 billion, and EUR 7.7 million.
Two notifications on suspicious financial transactions were sent to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine in Q1 2018.
In Q1 2018, basing on the results of FX control, the NBU informed law enforcement bodies about large-scale financial transactions of clients of five banks for the total amount of more than USD 34.5 million in order to implement state policy in the field of combating organized crime.
The information sent to the law enforcement bodies mostly concerned bank customers’ financial transactions of such nature or implying such consequences that might relate them to capital withdrawal, legalizing criminal proceeds, converting cashless funds into cash, fictitious entrepreneurship, and tax evasion.
According to statistical reports on AML/CFT submitted by banks to the NBU for Q1 2018, banks reported over 2 million financial transactions subject to AML/CFT monitoring to the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine, which was almost 22.7% more than within the same period last year (1.7 million).
“An introduction of risk-based approach in planning and performing AML/CFT supervision on and educational activities for banks on these issues benefited to higher efficiency of counteraction to “scheme” transactions in Q1 2018”, said Ihor Bereza, Director of NBU Financial Monitoring Department.
The Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism (MONEYVAL) in its report dated 30 January 2018 confirmed that Ukraine is a reliable jurisdiction in combating money laundering and terrorist financing, and also emphasized the high level of regulatory and supervisory activities in the banking sector.