General News

ANTI MONEY LAUNDERING PRACTICES - IS YOUR AGENT COMPLYING?

25-July-2005

With a Belfast Estate Agent recently hitting the headlines for breaching anti-money laundering regulations and finding himself at the centre of a major criminal investigation in Northern Ireland, its important to know the regulations estate agents are now bound by when it comes to Money Laundering.

As previously reported, from 1st March 2004 new regulations now require all estate agents to introduce procedures to combat money laundering and the criminal activity that underlies it.

In short, it is now an offence to assist any third party with what is known as placing, layering or integrating “dirty” money. This broadly covers any situation where an organisation assists in introducing the proceeds of criminal activity into an existing account, moving that money between accounts or in any way “legitimising” illicit funds.

“Since the introduction of the new money laundering regulations, Waterfords have made simple yet effective measures to abide by the regulations,” comments Darren Walter, Senior Compliance Officer for the company.

“All our staff are trained on the details of the legislation and are fully responsible for reporting suspect transactions, with company wide procedures to identify all vendors, purchasers, landlords and tenants with whom we are dealing. This requires the verification of an individual through a form of photo identification, i.e. a valid passport and/or driving licence to be kept on file from the time we commence dealings with them.”

Darren concludes; “ And more importantly all staff are aware that failure to comply to the regulations could result in the company being prosecuted or fined and the individual concerned even facing a prison sentence!”
 

email: darren.walter@waterfords.co.uk