THE "WASHING" IS OVER: ROSFINMONITORING ELIMINATED 19 LANDROMATS IN 2021

The Federal Financial Monitoring Service published a July report with data on the liquidation in 2021 of shadow structures engaged in the "laundering" of financial funds (the so-called "landromats"). The agency points out that 19 such sites were destroyed, through which about 30 billion rubles passed over the year. There were only 8 such liquidations in the report for the previous year.

According to Izvestia, based on the data of the report, 62 criminal cases were initiated as a result of the measures taken. Almost 4 thousand companies and individuals involved in the work of the liquidated sites were also identified.

The agency managed to identify 49 persons who were the organizers of illegal operations and about 3 thousand participants. The latter are, as a rule, one–day firms that have been engaged in payment transactions. More than a hundred customers of illegal services have also been identified.

The supervisory authority notes that all landromats ("laundries") operated exclusively within the framework of the Russian legal space. The services of such sites were in demand for illegal tax transactions, the implementation of "gray" imports, to receive cash proceeds bypassing state control mechanisms.

According to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, suspicious transactions in the activities of credit institutions decreased by 20% in 2021.

The Central Bank found 43 billion rubles illegally withdrawn abroad. Another 62 billion rubles were received in the process of cash withdrawal. The most popular for illegal financial services last year were trade, construction and the service sector.

Analysts suggest that in 2022, the financial monitoring service will need to tune in to identify new ways of laundering finances. It is predicted that they may become schemes with the transfer of funds through the financial systems of foreign countries that have not been used for these purposes before.

Under the conditions of anti-Russian sanctions imposed by a number of states, Russian legitimate business began to actively look for new foreign partners and available tools to work with them. Perhaps, experts suggest, representatives of the shadow business will do the same. This will seriously complicate the ways to identify such offenses and work patterns.