Colombia has detected $20 billion likely tied to money laundering -official

By Nelson Bocanegra

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s monetary crimes unit, intensifying efforts to catch fraud, has detected some $20 billion in monetary operations doubtlessly tied to cash laundering over the past 3-1/2 years, the unit’s director mentioned.

The determine is equal to greater than 6% of Colombia’s annual gross home product.

Cash laundering happens when funds earned from unlawful actions like drug trafficking are invested in entrance companies which combine illicit cash into the professional monetary system.

The funds have been detected by way of greater than 20,000 suspicious exercise reviews flagged annually by the Monetary Data and Evaluation Unit (UIAF).

“In the previous couple of years we have hit the accelerator and the educational curve by way of interception of illicit funds,” UIAF director Javier Gutierrez informed Reuters.

The $20 billion was detected between 2019 and mid-2022, he mentioned.

The United Nations Workplace on Medicine and Crime estimates that 2% to five% of the world’s GDP – between $800 billion and $2 trillion – is laundered yearly, although by its nature cash laundering is difficult to hint.

Laundering may cause inflation and create unfair competitors when entrance companies provide services at artificially low costs.

The UIAf has discovered some 570 channels by way of which cash is laundered – together with faux or inflated invoices, foreign money buying and selling, exports and crypto-currencies, Gutierrez mentioned.

Colombia’s penal code outlines 66 sorts of crimes tied to cash laundering together with medication and arms trafficking, customs fraud and folks smuggling.

The Andean nation is a prime producer of cocaine and residential to insurgent teams and crime gangs concerned in drug trafficking, unlawful mining and different crimes.

“In significance drug trafficking is the one which generates probably the most sources and corruption is second for the hurt it does to public funding and social packages,” mentioned Gutierrez.

Preventing cash laundering is doubtlessly simpler for combating crime than arrests, Gutierrez mentioned.

“Being detected issues little or no to criminals, it issues rather more to be captured, however what hurts them most is the prospect sources can be taken away,” mentioned Gutierrez. “In the event you bankrupt them economically it’s a lot more durable for them to be resilient.”

(Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Modifying by David Gregorio)