The unit reported an increase in suspicious transaction reports related to money laundering across various sectors, including remote gaming. Gaming and banking were identified as the two main contributors to this increase in reporting. However, this rise in suspicious activity reports was viewed as a positive development. In 2020, the total number of suspicious transaction reports across all sectors reached 5,090, compared to 1,668 in 2018.
The report emphasized certain deficiencies in anti-money laundering checks by remote gaming operators. Investigations revealed that these operators often collected irrelevant details that did not contribute to building a customer’s profile, such as basic employment information. The FIAU also identified inadequate checks by gaming operators, such as the absence of enhanced due diligence despite dealing with players from high-risk countries, including those placing large bets at low odds. Another example involved an operator with a comprehensive AML procedures manual that failed to implement policies like mandatory checks for players spending €2,000 or more.
The FIAU also listed the most common types of AML rule breaches in non-financial sectors, including gaming. The top breach involved an inadequate customer risk assessment, accounting for 11.6% of all breaches. The second most common breach was a lack of measures to verify if a player is a politically exposed person, representing 7.6% of breaches. However, the report did not specify the number of gaming-related breaches within these statistics.
