The number of reports to Luxembourg’s financial crimes unit (CRF) rose by 179% from 2015 to 2015 with 30,710 suspicious financial operations reported Pexels

The number of reports to Luxembourg’s financial crimes unit (CRF) rose by 179% from 2015 to 2015 with 30,710 suspicious financial operations reported Pexels

In its annual report (pdf), the CRF credits the substantial increase to a rise in reports from electronic money establishments.

“Looking closer, we see the increase is the result of a single electronic money establishment which operates an online payment platform (+340.24%)”, the CRF said in its report.

Among the cases reported, the vast majority (99.7%) concerned money laundering, with the remainder connected to the financing of terrorism. The number of reports made to the CRF from abroad remained fairly stable, rising from 316 to 374 in 2016.

Last year, 577 cases made it to court, ten more than the previous year. According to the report, the most commonly used means to commit a financial crime reported to the CRF were the use of false bank notes (up 453%) with 72 instances, false use of cheques or money orders (down 57%) with 90 cases and international transfers (up 72%) with 124 cases.

However, in terms of financial crimes by volume of money involved, the biggest were corruption (€806m, up from €630m in 2015), fraud (€247m, up from €78m) and drug trafficking (€31m, up from €667,657 in 2015). The majority of cases involved suspects based in Luxemboug (168), followed by France (38), Belgium (31) and Germany (22).