KUALA LUMPUR – Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) received about 250,000 suspicious transaction reports (STRs) in 2022, representing a nearly 30% increase from the year before, deputy governor Marzunisham Omar said.
He said the top five risk crimes – fraud, corruption, smuggling, illicit drug trafficking and organised crimes – accounted for about 70% of FIU’s disclosures to law enforcement agencies and foreign FIUs.
“These disclosures resulted in the arrests of 51 individuals, freezing and seizing of assets of more than RM570 million as well as revenue recovery of RM372 million in relation to organised crimes and tax offences,” he said in his speech at the Companies Commission Malaysia National Conference 2023 today.
Meanwhile, he said the National Scam Response Centre received more than 15,000 scam case reports with losses amounting to RM141 million since its launch in October 2022.
Marzunisham said according to the Royal Malaysia Police, nearly 72,000 scam cases were reported with losses exceeding RM5 billion over the past two years.
He said the National Risk Assessment 2020 (NRA 2020) based on data analysis between 2017 to 2019 also found that fraud, corruption, smuggling, illicit drug trafficking and organised crimes formed the top five high-risk crimes that pose significant money laundering and terrorist financing threats in Malaysia.
The NRA 2020 also detected the rising role of professional enablers in masking crimes, he said.
“Lawyers, accountants and company secretaries are considered higher-risk professions due to their roles as facilitators or enablers through the management of client’s money, setting-up of shell and complex structures of legal persons as well as the provision of nominee services in obscuring ownership/control,” he said.
He said as a group, companies’ secretaries are among the top three designated non-financial businesses and professions sectors when it comes to meeting the requirement for the appointment of compliance officers.
“We have observed that company secretaries have only submitted an average of 11 STRs annually. This is of concern given that there are more than 4,000 company secretaries in Malaysia,” he said.
Marzunisham said the gap between the actual and expected number of submissions reflected an urgent need for company secretaries to be extra vigilant in detecting high-risk crimes more effectively.
Hence, he said the role of a robust anti-money laundering/countering financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime is critical in combatting financial crimes.
He added that the Financial Action Task Force, commencing in 2024, would showcase Malaysia’s commitment to fighting financial crimes and implementing effective AML/CFT measures. – Bernama, July 25, 2023
