TIRANA, March 30 – Albania law enforcement institutions seized around €16 million in 2015 in transfers suspected of money laundering, according to a report by the Albanian Financial Intelligence Unit. Some €11 million was seized under court decisions. The agency said it received some 1,319 suspicious activity reports in 2015, up 7 percent compared to 2014, mainly from banks and money transfer agencies.
While the origin of the proceeds remains unknown for about half of the 402 cases, officials said they identified 48 cases where the origin of the proceeds is trafficking of narcotics, compared to 38 cases of tax evasion, 16 cases of people with criminal records, 6 cases of trafficking of human beings and prostitution and 2 cases of suspected financing of terrorism.
The report mentions two cases involving large amounts of money seized on suspicion of money laundering. One case involved a politically exposed person who wanted to transfer Euro 200,000 to his son to buy an apartment in a European country.
Banks and other financial institutions have to report on transactions of more than 1 million lek (€7,000) while the Property Registration Office reports on contracts worth more than 6 million lek (€42,000).
Albania seized a total of around 5 billion lek (€35.5 mln) in suspected money laundering transfers during the 2009-2015 period, the majority of which in the past couple of years.
Albania lost $1.2 billion in illicit financial flows from 2004 to 2013 at an average of $123 million annually during the decade which ranks the country 118th among 149 economies, according to a study published by Global Financial Integrity, a U.S.-based research and advocacy organization.
The study shows illicit financial flows, which involves illegal movements of money or capital from one country to another, dropped to $18 million in 2013, down from $36 million in 2012, $255 million in 2011 and a record high of $305 million in 2008.
The illegal capital outflows stem from tax evasion, crime, corruption, and other illicit activity.
Albania has been removed from the list of countries under continuous monitoring on money laundering and financing of terrorism, the Finance Ministry says citing a newly published report by Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) inter-governmental body.
In 2015 Albania was also removed from the watch list of Moneyval, the Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism, a monitoring body of the Council of Europe.
