Crack team hits fraud

The government is to establish an anti-money laundering task force, after a report last week lambasted the process by which suspicious activity reports (SARs) are made to the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) and local police by companies and professionals, including lawyers.

The report - produced for NCIS by accountancy firm KPMG - said there is a lack of ownership of the SARs regime as a whole, at a time when NCIS is predicting that the number of SARs will leap to 100,000 in 2003, from 63,000 last year, following implementation of the Proceeds of Crime Act and European Money Laundering Directive.

It criticised the quality of disclosures made, the failure of the police and other authorities to give satisfactory feedback to disclosing parties, the lack of staff at NCIS's economic crime branch, delays, low resources and a lack of management.

Recommendations included the creation of a task force, fundamental change in the structure of NCIS's economic crime branch, improving the quality of SARs made, and the methods that local police forces use to deal with them.

The Home Office said it would recruit the task force from the private sector, law enforcement agencies and government, and oversee a 'thorough overhaul of SARs'.

Home Office minister Caroline Flint said: 'SARs have been proven to catch criminals and terrorists, but as with any system there is always room for improvement.'

Louise Delahunty, chairwoman of the Law Society's money laundering and serious fraud task force, said: 'I look forward to the Law Society working with the government task force to ensure that a more efficient reporting regime is in place.'

Jeremy Fleming