The customs anti-money laundering unit received more suspicious activity reports than ever before. Overall, the number of suspicious activity reports to the so-called Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has risen by around a quarter to a good 144,000, reported the General Customs Directorate in Bonn on Thursday. Around 97 percent of the reports came from the financial sector. But there were also significantly more suspicious transaction reports from notaries, financial companies and real estate agents. The FIU forwarded around 25,000 cases to the responsible law enforcement authorities.
According to the customs investigators, the number of reports in connection with crypto values has more than doubled.
A total of around 2050 "anomalies in connection with crypto currencies" were reported.
Often it was about fraud.
The aggrieved here are usually people whose orders for goods and goods via auction portals, classified ads websites or fake shops have come to nothing, who have invested assets with a fraudulent background, or where the perpetrators have gained control of their bank accounts.
More than 11,000 suspected corona cases
But the FIU was also concerned with Corona. Between the start of the corona pandemic and the end of 2020, investigators received 11,200 suspicious transaction reports on the subject of Covid-19. Around 9500 of these reports related to the fraudulent acquisition of the "Corona emergency aid". On the one hand, there were cases in which criminals obtained company data via so-called “fake websites”, which were then illegally used to obtain immediate financial aid.
On the other hand, the FIU was also frequently informed of facts relating to the granting of immediate financial aid to alleged solo self-employed persons or micro-enterprises, some of which either did not exist or recently had no business activity at all. At times these reports made up up to 25 percent of the total monthly reporting volume. Numerous cases of fraud were discovered in this way, reported the General Customs Directorate.