Russia’s Financial Intelligence Unit: A Key Player in Fighting Money Laundering

Rosfinmonitoring, Russia’s financial intelligence unit, is a crucial component of the country’s anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CFT) regime. This report highlights Rosfinmonitoring’s key role in providing high-quality financial intelligence to law enforcement agencies (LEAs), contributing to the effective investigation and prosecution of money laundering activity.

Sophisticated Technologies and Automation

Rosfinmonitoring’s wealth of available data, including over 20 million suspicious transaction reports (STRs) and 10 million mandatory cash report (MCRs) per year, enables it to prioritize, generate, and contribute to cases pursued by LEAs. The unit’s sophisticated technologies and high degree of automation allow for quick and efficient analysis of financial data.

Close Cooperation with Domestic Counterparts

Rosfinmonitoring’s close cooperation with domestic counterparts is a key factor in Russia’s effectiveness in combating money laundering. The unit’s financial analysis and dissemination support are particularly valuable in identifying and investigating complex financial crimes.

Areas for Improvement

While Rosfinmonitoring is generally effective, there are some areas for improvement. For example:

• LEAs tend to focus on self-laundering rather than third-party money laundering (ML)
• ML investigations may not always be opened or completed when there is evidence of a more easily provable alternative charge

Investigation and Prosecution of Money Laundering Activity

Russia’s efforts to investigate and prosecute ML activity are notable, with approximately 85% of detected offenses related to high-risk areas such as drug crimes and crimes involving public funds. However:

• The number of ML cases pursued in the area of bribery does not entirely align with risk, despite thousands of recent convictions
• Administrative sanctions against legal persons were not demonstrated

Alternative Measures

Russia has also utilized alternative measures to prosecute financial crimes, including illegal banking, outflow offenses, and shell company-related offenses. These measures disrupt schemes that may represent third-party ML infrastructure but require less investigation into the full scope of criminal conduct.

Conclusion

Overall, Rosfinmonitoring plays a vital role in Russia’s AML/CFT regime, providing high-quality financial intelligence to LEAs and contributing to the effective investigation and prosecution of money laundering activity.