"We know that the use of fraudulent identities continues to be a key enabler of serious and organised crime and terrorism," Keenan said in a statement. Australia has set up a cyber-intelligence unit to identify terrorism financing, money laundering and financial fraud online, the government says, because of "unprecedented" threats to national security. The new unit would also work with the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network to identify patterns and trends that could indicate large-scale financial scams or their methodology, Mr Keenan said. Justice Minister Michael Keenan said today that the new unit, set up under money-tracking agency the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC), would investigate online payment platforms and financial cybercrime to crack down on money-laundering and criminal networks. The statement said the new AUSTRAC unit would work with the Australian and New Zealand government-funded identity support service, ID Care, to target job recruitment scams that crime syndicates used to recruit innocent people to traffic money between jurisdictions.

Source: Otago Daily Times August 09, 2016 02:15 UTC