New Zealand an ‘easy target’ for money launderers
Jenine Colmore-Williams, 27 March 2021
Last week a series of arrests and property seizures across the Auckland region hit the headlines, the culmination of an extensive investigation by the New Zealand Police’s Financial Crime Group into money laundering and related crimes.
Jenine Colmore-Williams is executive director and founder of Dimension GRC, a New Zealand company at the front line of the battle against money laundering. She warns the issue runs far deeper in Aotearoa than many Kiwis realise, and that our celebrated ease of doing business makes us an easy target.
OPINION: Money laundering is the process of making money earned from criminal activities such as fraud, illegal drugs and tax evasion appear to have come from legitimate sources. Most criminal transactions are handled in cash due to its untraceable nature, but as the ill-gotten gains begin to pile up, it can become a liability to those who are accumulating it.
The process of transferring dodgy cash into legitimate finances can involve not just banks but lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, casinos, high-value goods dealers, financial advisers – in fact, every firm in the country through which lumps of money occasionally come and go in the normal course of business. Sounding a bit like an episode of Ozark not our beautiful “clean, green” New Zealand?
There is a perception among many New Zealanders that money laundering remains the domain of global cities such as London and New York. However, the reality is that it happens right here, under our noses, through semi-legitimate businesses that are out in the open on our streets and in our communities.
The Government has recognised the need to tighten the net against these activities, implementing its Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act in 2009. The task of ensuring compliance with this legislation is just another requirement for many normal Kiwi businesses.
