Australia’s financial crimes watchdog warned of a heightened threat of money laundering linked to artificial intelligence that has been used by crooks to scale up activities, automate processes and create fake documents.
"Criminals are increasingly using AI as a part of their money laundering toolkit – fabricating identities, forging documents and rapidly disguising the proceeds of scams,” said Brendan Thomas, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre. "In some cases, technology is automating what used to be manual laundering techniques, raising the sophistication and scale of financial crime,” he said as the agency released annual updates to its risk guidelines.
Austrac, which acts as both a regulator and financial intelligence unit, issued the warning as it gave new risk assessments for money laundering, terrorism and illegal transactions connected to Iran and North Korea. It said Australia’s open, trade-integrated economy and reliance on cross-border financial and commercial systems raise exposure to the risks.
Austrac is one of a group of government agencies working with the country’s banks to investigate allegations of mortgage fraud that likely spans loans worth billions of dollars, the Australian Financial Review reported last week, underscoring the risk of money laundering in the country’s financial system.
From July 1, businesses including real estate agents, dealers in precious metals and stones as well as trust and company service providers will be covered by anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing rules. Many of these entities have been identified as having high or very high-risk of being exploited for money laundering, according to Austrac. – Bloomberg
