KUALA LUMPUR, May 8 — Financial planners need to carry out their duty to report any suspicious activities that might be linked to money laundering to the authorities, said Bukit Aman Anti-Money Laundering Criminal Investigation Division assistant director ACP Foo Wei Min.
The rate of reports by financial planners about such activities is currently still low, and as reporting institutions, they have the duty of lodging suspicious transaction reports (STR) and currency transaction reports (CTR) to senior management of banks when approached by clients who wished to purchase products without disclosing their financial sources.
“When Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) receives a report, they will channel it to enforcement, and we will investigate,” he told Bernama at the Annual Signature Financial Planning Symposium 2024 today.
Foo added that bank compliance groups also play a role as an advisory body to banks to suggest stringent measures for products that banks launch to ensure that they can curb mule accounts.
“But there are those (who know of mule accounts) but do not make (reports to banks) and do not carry out their duty of advising banks,” he said.
The Commercial Crime Investigation Department detected RM3.8 billion in currency transfer transactions to 43 countries through 15 trading companies registered in Malaysia in March, suspected to be illicit gains from fraudulent activities, from 2021 to 2023.
Its director Datuk Seri Ramli Mohamed Yoosuf said they detected a trend of companies being registered and accounts opened in the companies’ names suspected of being used as mule accounts.
— Bernama
