Suspicious transactions rise 71 pct in first half

In the first half of 2011 local companies filed 746 suspicious transaction reports (STRs) with the Financial Intelligence Office (GIF), up by 71 percent from the same period of last year.
The STRs were created as a tool to prevent money laundering. But, according to official GIF data quoted by Portuguese news agency Lusa, only 31 cases were sent to the Public Prosecutions Office.
This is a marked drop from the whole of 2010, when the GIF earmarked around 100 STRs for investigation.
Casinos remain the biggest source of reports, accounting for 69 percent of the total with 519 STRs. The number of gaming reports grew by 239 in the initial half of 2011.
The financial business, which includes banks and insurance companies, filed 30 percent of all STRs. But this sector saw its number of reports soar from 131 to 223 in the first six-months of this year.
The number of STRs is likely to hit a new record in the whole of 2011 after rising non-stop since the anti-money laundering law came into effect in 2006. Reports climbed from 725 the following year to 1,220 in 2010.