THE HAGUE - Criminals launder around € 13 billion a year in the Netherlands. The FD reports this on the basis of research from Utrecht University. Unlike an earlier investigation, based on assumptions, this time access was given to money laundering data from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).
Last year, the same researchers reported that criminals in the Netherlands estimated to launder € 16 billion annually. That amount was established on the basis of reasoned assumptions. This time, they had access to almost 80,000 unusual transactions, done between 2009 and 2014. Transactions that have been designated as suspicious by FIU, the FD explains.
Professor Brigitte Unger, research leader, and her colleagues were allowed to browse through a large number of reports from banks, casinos and car dealers, among others. Sectors that are often associated with money laundering. It can be read in the FD that the researchers assume that € 16 billion in criminal money is earned annually. Half of this is laundered in the Netherlands. On the other hand, another € 5 billion of criminal money is flowing in from abroad, bringing the sum to approximately € 13 billion, or approximately 1.6% of Dutch GDP.
There is currently a lot in the media about money laundering and specifically also the role that banks play or have played in it and what they can do about it. Although people are willing to invest, it is difficult to find enough qualified personnel to perform these tasks. Moreover, the problem also has very structural causes, according to Rob Smeets of consultancy firm TriFinance earlier this year on Banken.nl. He argues that digitization in the financial sector facilitates money laundering unintentionally.
Another conclusion of the study is that the Netherlands as a transit country for criminal money is less attractive than expected. The size of an economy determines the extent to which criminals consider a country attractive. "If a country has a high GDP, a lot of money can be made and money laundering is less noticeable," says Unger in the FD. “And rich countries appear to attract money laundering flows from each other, certainly if they also border on each other. In addition, I must immediately say that tax evasion has not been included in this study. Then the flow could be much higher for the Netherlands."
