Suspicious transaction reports by Macau casinos fell by 14.3 percent last year, the city’s Financial Intelligence Office said in its latest update.
The city’s gaming sector remains the main source for such transaction reports, accounting for 1,138 cases, or 71.3 percent of the total. Most of the other cases were in the banking or insurance sectors.
Casinos in Macau are also required to report to the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau high value transactions worth over MOP500,000 (US$62,615).
The number of cases of suspicious transactions sent by the Financial Intelligence Office to the Public Prosecutions Office for further investigation dropped to 147 from 166, according to the office’s latest newsletter.
The number of reports actually investigated remains just a small fraction of the total number of suspicious transaction reports. The office passed on to the prosecutors 9.2 percent of all reports received last year.
The Financial Intelligence Office said when non-casino cases were taken into account, it received a total of 1,595 reports in 2013, 13.3 percent fewer than a year before. There were 1,840 suspicious transaction reports overall in 2012.
