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Inflation is rampant, money is losing value at breakneck speed, and interest rates are falling like houses of cards. One of the reasons for this is money laundering. This process is extremely harmful to the economy and can have tragic consequences, but it does not change the fact that money laundering is a powerful business in Poland, which is still functioning and doing well. Fortunately, there are organizations and individuals who are professionally engaged in detecting such frauds and bringing the crooks to justice. We’ll tell you what AML is.
It’s a borrowed English abbreviation that comes from the words anti-money laundering. In everyday language, it means more or less that AML practitioners try to catch and control suspicious activities of institutions that may be engaged in money laundering. In Poland, the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act has been in force since March 1, 2018. It provides for very high penalties for those who violate its provisions
Money laundering, in simple terms, is the introduction into legal circulation of funds from an illegal source, or obtained in an illegal manner. One of the most frequently used methods to “clean” money is to overstate one’s income from legal activity. Such a procedure is difficult to detect and estimate the scale on which it was conducted. There are also places, such as stores or restaurants, which, in a way, “serve” to launder dirty money. Wherever large sums of money are spent at one time, money laundering could theoretically occur
The latest amendment to the Law on Anti-Money Laundering and Financial Terrorism, specifically identified the institutions that are required to implement and apply AML systems. The list is really long and it is not worth listing every item here, we will present just a few of them here. The following, among others, have to implement anti-money laundering measures: banks and other financial institutions, including bureaux de change, foundations and associations, real estate agents, insurance companies, virtual offices, attorneys, legal advisors, as well as private entrepreneurs who trade with amounts not lower than 10,000 euros at a time
If a company or firm operating in one of the industries listed in the Act fails to implement AML measures within its ranks, it will face serious consequences. There are three types of penalties: administrative fines, sanctions and imprisonment. The amount of these penalties depends on, among other things, the company’s turnover, the period of time in which it has been operating and the seriousness of the threat. The administrative fine can amount to a maximum of almost 21,000,000 (no, that’s not a mistake – twenty one million) zlotys. Sanctions that may be imposed due to non-compliance with the law include, for example, publication in the Public Information Bulletin (BIP), withdrawal of the business license or deletion of the institution from the register of regulated activities
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