As a result of the fourth mutual evaluation.[1] round of the Financial Action Task Force, the Financial Intelligence Unit underwent a fundamental restructuring program. Since then, A-FIU acts as a sole intelligence service and is not involved in criminal proceedings anymore.
Professional groups bearing a high risk of being misused for money laundering activities, such as the banking sector, lawyers, real estate agents or crypto currency exchangers, are called obliged professions. In order to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, obliged entities have to comply with certain due diligence and reporting obligations. They have to pay particular attention to unusual transactions of their clients, to high-risk customers or to patterns without any apparent economic or legal purpose. If obliged professions suspect money laundering or terrorist financing, they have to file a suspicious transaction or activity report to the A-FIU.
As part of its analytical procedure, A-FIU evaluates the information provided, cross-matches it with existing data and checks for further police findings or financial intelligence. A-FIU will not carry out executive powers.[2]
If the analysis proves that a criminal offence has been committed, the Financial Intelligence Unit forwards the analysis results and additional relevant information to the authorities responsible for the prosecution of the case.
One of the main functions of A-FIU is the information filtering towards law enforcement agencies. Due to the high volume of information provided by obliged professions, A-FIU must identify and forward only those cases that justify criminal proceedings.
A-FIU’s powers
To fulfil its mandate, A-FIU can rely on a set of powers:
The Criminal Intelligence Service Austria, Seat of the A-FIUA-FIU may request from obliged entities any information necessary to prevent or prosecute money laundering or terrorist financing. Bank secrecy does not apply in this respect.[3]
A-FIU is authorised to gather all necessary personal data within the framework of police statutes and to analyse it together with already existing data. For this purpose, A-FIU uses the analysis tool goAML.
A-FIU may disseminate analytical results and any other relevant information to domestic and foreign authorities or bodies responsible for fight against money laundering, its predicate offences or terrorist financing.
As a provisional measure, A-FIU is authorised to freeze funds or to prohibit transactions for a period up to six months, when there are concerns about money laundering or terrorism financing. In addition, A-FIU can reserve its right to approve any order of a client for outgoing transactions.[4]
