Money-laundering arrests in the Republic have surged since the start of the year. They are on course to surpass the record level recorded during the pandemic years, when scam-based crimes soared.
Figures obtained by The Irish Times reveal there were the same number of arrests in the first nine months of 2024 as all of last year. The level of arrests is set to reach between 650 and 700 by year end, a 10-fold increase since 2018.
Garda sources said money-laundering arrests were increasing because the nature of crime was changing and because the Garda was now more focused on identifying and investigating it.
While previously drugs and guns were the main objective when targeting groups involved in the drugs trade, many of those investigations now involved a strong focus on money laundering, Garda sources said.
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“With some of these groups, they have sophisticated money operations in place,” said one. “We’ve found separate money-laundering structures within some of the bigger gangs, who really only look after the money; laundering it, getting it out of the country and so on.”
The increase in cyber-enabled scams, and a large rise in the number of people allowing their bank accounts be used by the gangs involved, have also led to more money-laundering investigations. This has included the international Black Axe gang, an international fraud and money-laundering syndicate which originated in Nigeria.
It has recruiters and other agents in the Republic, recruiting so-called ‘mules’ – people who are persuaded to allow their bank accounts be used to take receipt of the money from frauds carried out internationally on promise of payment.
Any attempt to legitimise or ‘clean’ money is considered money laundering, even crude efforts such as transferring it between bank accounts or jurisdictions in a bid to conceal its origins.
Up until last week, some 508 money-laundering arrests had been made this year in the Republic, the same as all of last year. If trends in the first nine months continued for the remainder of the year, as expected, arrests would reach between 650 and 700 by year end.
That would surpass the record 516 arrests recording in 2021, after scam activity increased exponentially during the pandemic. In 2017 there were 53 arrests for money-laundering offences, rising to 84 in 2019. That increased suddenly, to 295 arrests, in 2020 and just exceeded 500 in each of the last three years, before accelerating sharply since the start of this year.
In reply to queries, Garda Headquarters said there had been a “significant increase” in the use by gardaí of section 11 of the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010.
This charge can be pursued even in the absence of evidence of “a predicate offence”, meaning the initial crime that generated money, as long as there is “reasonable belief” that a suspect’s money or assets have “come from illegal means and outside of their means”.
In recent years the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau had also undertaken “outreach training and awareness” for gardaí around the country. “Courses are run on an annual basis to train Garda members in the process of identifying and investigating incidents of money laundering,” the Garda said.
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