With every news story about a scam involving cryptocurrencies or a new scandal involving celebrities associated with sports betting companies, the popular Bets, the feeling one gets is that the criminal underworld is many steps ahead of the civilized world in its strategies to transform illegally obtained resources into assets that appear to be legitimate, the so-called money laundering.
After all, given the clamor from the business world for innovations that lead to the emergence and dissemination of mechanisms such as cryptocurrencies and the popular clamor for the possibility of combining the useful (making money) with the pleasant (trusting your favorite team) in betting, how can we monitor the occurrence of thousands of transactions every minute to prevent all this goodwill from being used to finance criminal activities and terrorism, for example?
In Brazil, Law No. 9,613 of 1998, known as the Money Laundering Law, is the legal basis that defines the crime and establishes severe penalties for those involved. Furthermore, she created the Financial Activities Control Board (COAF), responsible for receiving reports of suspicious transactions and producing financial intelligence to combat this type of crime.
In turn, the Central Bank operates directly with the Brazilian System for Prevention and Combat of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (PLD/FT). It regulates the rules for financial institutions to implement AML/CFT policies, monitoring and supervising their compliance and applying administrative sanctions when necessary. Furthermore, the Central Bank maintains the National Financial System Customer Registry (CCS) and reports suspicious activities to the COAF and the Public Prosecutor's Office.
But in practice, technology is the key to preventing money laundering. Advanced data analysis tools enable financial institutions to detect suspicious activity patterns and identify potential cases. The implementation and integration of specialized software are recommended to improve detection efficiency and strengthen compliance and internal audit processes.
One of the fundamental requirements in this regard is that financial institutions have a deep understanding of their clients. This involves conducting a complete identification of all parties involved in financial transactions, both Individuals and Legal Entities. The KYC process is not limited to document collection; it also includes verifying the source of funds and ongoing transaction monitoring to identify suspicious behaviors.
Concerned about the issue, Febraban will hold the 14th edition of theMoney Laundering Prevention Congressand the Financing of Terrorism (PLDFT), considered the largest event on the subject in Brazil. Not by chance, this year's central theme will be "Integrated approach between control areas."
The program will allow for reflection on sensitive and strategic topics not only for banks, but for the entire society that ends up, in one way or another, being threatened by this practice.
Some already defined topics are, for example: "Challenges in the interaction of Financial Intelligence Units," "Strategic actions for combating and preventing illicit activities," "Use of artificial intelligence in PLDFT," "Sports betting and its impacts," and "Socio-environmental crimes – slave labor, money laundering crimes, and corruption."
As we can see from the breadth of discussions, it becomes completely utopian to imagine that a new law or a new technological solution alone will be able to meet the challenge.
In this scenario, sharing integrated information and technologies is the only way to strengthen the fight against financial crime. and mitigate the risks associated with money laundering by ensuring compliance with current regulations.
