Organised criminals use ‘cuckoo smurfing’ as a method of laundering money to disguise and integrate their funds across borders to profit from and further enable their illegal activities.
Generally this method of money laundering relies on exploiting the bank accounts of customers expecting to receive legitimate funds. These customers are often unaware that the funds transferred into their accounts are the proceeds of crime.
To protect Australia’s financial system against exploitation, AUSTRAC’s Fintel Alliance has developed this financial crime guide on cuckoo smurfing.
The guide explains how cuckoo smurfing takes place, and specific indicators to help remittance service providers, banking and financial services businesses understand, identify and report suspicious transactions related to this activity.
Download and read the Financial crime guide – Detect and report cuckoo smurfing (PDF, 1.59MB)
How your customers can protect themselves
We have partnered with the Australian Federal Police to release a factsheet for the public on how to protect themselves from cuckoo smurfing.
This guidance sets out how we interpret the Act, along with associated Rules and regulations. Australian courts are ultimately responsible for interpreting these laws and determining if any provisions of these laws are contravened.
The examples and scenarios in this guidance are meant to help explain our interpretation of these laws. They’re not exhaustive or meant to cover every possible scenario.
This guidance provides general information and isn't a substitute for legal advice. This guidance avoids legal language wherever possible and it might include generalisations about the application of the law. Some provisions of the law referred to have exceptions or important qualifications. In most cases your particular circumstances must be taken into account when determining how the law applies to you.