China's central bank said suspected cases of money laundering
jumped 12-fold to 387 billion yuan (US$52 billion) last year as
measures to monitor currency flows in the economy were
tightened.
Police resolved more than 100 of 1,239 cases referred to them,
involving 40 billion yuan, the People's Bank of China said in a
report posted on its Website on Monday. In 2005, the central bank
reported 32.8 billion yuan of suspect transactions to police,
Bloomberg News said.
The jump in suspicious movements reflects China's efforts to
prevent money laundering from undermining an economy that grew 11.5
percent in the first nine months of this year. The government is
cleaning up the banking industry after spending almost US$500
billion bailing out the nation's four biggest state-owned lenders
hurt by bad loans, according to an estimate by Moody's Investors
Service.
"China is improving its monitoring system," said Qu Qing, an
analyst at Shenyin Wanguo Research and Consulting Co in Shanghai.
"Better monitoring means more money laundering can be
detected."
Ten foreign lenders were among 662 banks fined a total of 40.5
million yuan for violating money laundering rules last year, the
central bank said.
The central bank said it took enforcement action against more
than 70 underground money exchange and laundering units involving
US$3 billion in 2006.
The number of "suspicious" foreign currency transactions
reported to the central bank rose 112 percent to 4.22 million from
a year earlier, it said, without giving a value.
The places with suspected money laundering included Shanghai and
Shandong, Guangdong and Yunnan provinces, it said.
(Shanghai Daily November 7, 2007)
