Money-laundering is a serious and widespread crime. No industry can afford to be complacent. But we take issue with claims made in the Guardian (The gambling machines helping drug dealers turn dirty money clean, 8 November) that bookmakers are at the heart of endemic money-laundering.
Our research shows there is no evidence to support such claims. According to the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the number of suspicious incidents involving our shops made up less than 0.3% of all the cases reported to them. This is a total of 89 cases compared to some 218,021 recorded in the UK banking industry.
What’s more, UK enforcement agencies suspected wrongdoing in just 250 cases – in other words 0.00001667% of all transactions in the UK (1.5 billion). And only about 10% of these suspected cases ended up being investigated further or prosecuted.
This is not a surprise. Betting shop operators abide to stringent anti-money-laundering regulations in the UK through the Proceeds of Crime Act (2002), the Gambling Act (2005) and the Terrorism Act (2000).
But we believe that it’s hard for any fair-minded person looking at this evidence to come to the conclusion that bookmakers are a hotbed for money-laundering activity.
Dirk Vennix
Association of British Bookmakers
source : www.theguardian.com
