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Money-laundering law now captures gambling services

Two statutory instruments (SIs) to tackle money laundering have been signed into law.

The SIs commence the provisions of the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) (Amendment) Act 2018 and bring gambling service providers within the scope of anti-money laundering legislation.

This completes Ireland’s transposition of the EU’s Fourth AML Directive

Announcing the commencement of the new act, Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan said: “This legislation is really important. Money laundering is a crime that helps serious criminals and terrorists to function, destroying lives in the process   

“Criminals seek to exploit the EU’s open borders and this EU-wide measure is really important for that reason. I and my Government colleagues are committed to systematically tackling corruption and organised crime.”

The act aims to strengthen laws combatting money laundering and terrorist financing by:

• Obliging ‘designated persons’ –  banks and other financial institutions – to carry out due-diligence tests verifying customers’ identity and assess risk
• Extending the designation of a ‘politically exposed person’, and
• Lowering the threshold for ‘high-value goods’ from €15,000 to €10,000.

The Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010 (Section 25) (Prescribed Class of Designated Person) Regulations 2018 prescribe gambling services providers as designated persons under the legislation.

They are now obliged to carry out customer due diligence, report suspicious transactions, and comply with the other obligations under the act. 

Lotteries

All gambling service providers are captured by the new regulations other than lotteries, bingo, gaming and amusement machines and land-based poker, which were found to be low-risk following an assessment.

The customer due-diligence requirements only apply where the amount of money is more than €2,000.