U.K. crime fighters said they received a record number of reports between April 2017 and March 2018 concerning transactions with red flags for money laundering, terrorism financing or other financial crime. Of those, the NCA said, 22,619 raised concerns about potential money laundering, a 20% increase from the previous year. In 2015, the U.K. chapter of anticorruption group Transparency International said authorities investigated few reports of suspicious activity. And legal professionals filed 2,660, down 12%. “Law enforcement authorities should be coming down hard on those individuals and firms found not to have submitted reports after incidents of clear money laundering,” she said.

Source: Wall Street Journal January 10, 2019 21:22 UTC