This guide provides indicators and behaviours to help financial service providers, particularly those engaged in trade financing, to detect and report suspicious financial activity.
International trade is an attractive avenue for criminals as it presents risks and vulnerabilities that they can exploit. Criminals engaged in trade-based money laundering use the trade of goods and services to move illicit money into and out of Australia and around the world.
Trade-based money laundering schemes vary in complexity and can be challenging to detect as they can involve multiple parties and jurisdictions and misrepresent the prices, quantity or quality of imported or exported goods.
Your business can play a crucial role in detecting trade-based money laundering by recognising and reporting suspicious activity to AUSTRAC.
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.