Anti-money laundering refers to the activities financial institutions perform to achieve compliance with legal
requirements to actively monitor for and report suspicious activities. In simple terms, Anti-money laundering
is the prevention of money laundering which is the process of acquiring money illegally and turning it into
clean without having a source of origin.
The Anti-Money Laundering process consists of regulations, laws, and policies for limiting and combating
money laundering activities and crimes. It is the deliberate concealment of the source of illegal money and
showing it as legitimate money by passing it through some legal or commercial transactions. The illegal
money can be obtained from illegal activities like terrorist funding or narcotraffic.
The estimated amount of money laundered globally is US$800 billion to US$2 trillion in one year. It represents
2% to 5% of the world’s GDP. Anti-money laundering is closely related to counter-financing of terrorism, which
financial institutions use to combat terrorist financing
Anti-money laundering terms
PLACEMENT – It is the first stage in the money laundering process. This is the where illegal money enters the
financial system.
LAYERING – This is the second stage in the money laundering process where illegal money is covered up by
financial transactions and becomes difficult to detect the source of funds.
INTEGRATION – Integration is the last stage in the money laundering process where the illegal money moves
into the system as clean money through different techniques used by the criminals.
SMURFING – It is a method used in the layering stage by the criminals where the illegal money is divided into
small transactions and dispersed into different accounts to avoid the suspicion.
FIU (FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE UNITS) – Financial Intelligence Units are national agencies which deals with
combating money laundering and terrorist financing who collects the information about suspicious activities
and evaluate them to detect and take them down.
SAR (SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY REPORT) – Suspicious Activity Report is the report given by financial institutions
or other entities to the financial intelligence Units if they find any suspected money laundering activity.
goAML Anti money laundering
goAML is an integrated digital platform developed specifically for the use by Financial Intelligence Units
(FIU’s). It is used by Financial Intelligence Units across the world to collect, evaluate and detect financial
information. goAML platform was developed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). It is
developed to meet data collection, management, document management, workflow, and statistical needs of
Finance Intelligence Unit’s.
The Financial intelligence Units receives reports through goAML platform which are made by financial
institutions, and they process and analyse the reports. Those reports received by Financial Intelligence Units
through goAML platform provide the basis for investigations into money laundering or terrorist financing. The
introduction of the digital platform goAML makes it easy to fight against money laundering and terrorist
funding.
The digital platform can be accessed by the registered users where all the latest updates and information will
be available. To submit and report suspicious transaction report (STR), the reporting entities in UAE are
required to register on the goAML. A suspicious transaction report is the report made by financial institutions
to Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) when they find a suspected case of money laundering
Contact our team for a hassle-free registration process. We can further assist with a training platform for
accessing and maintaining the portal, with the formats and options of reporting on the portal.