Remittance company breaches anti-money-laundering law

A Sydney remittance business, Eastern & Allied, yesterday acknowledged its failure to comply with the Anti-Money-Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act and gave an undertaking to clean up its act.

The AML/CTF regulator Austrac found that Eastern & Allied, which trades as Hai Ha Money Transfer, failed to undertake employee due diligence as required and had employed a person "despite there being strong evidence to suggest that such person may facilitate the commission of a money laundering and/or financing of terrorism offence."

Austrac found that the company did not have an AML/CTF program with adequate risk-based controls and systems to identify, mitigate and manage the money laundering and terrorism financing risks it faces.

Austrac has accepted an enforceable undertaking from Eastern & Allied, which must review and modify its systems and controls.

This is only the fourth enforceable undertaking accepted by Austrac since it became the AML/CTF regulator.