Suspect gaming transaction reports up slightly in Macau

Aug 10, 2015 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck  

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There were 910 suspicious transaction reports – also known as STRs – relating to financial dealings in Macau in the first six months of 2015, according to the territory’s Financial Intelligence Office. That is up 3.8 percent from the prior-year period, reported the Portuguese-language channel of public broadcaster Rádio Macau.

The number of STRs related to the gaming sector increased by 2.9 percent year-on-year, to 682. They accounted for approximately 75 percent of all STR submissions in Macau in the six months to June 30.

Macau’s financial sector submitted 219 suspicious transaction reports to the intelligence office during the first half of 2015, six more than a year earlier.

The lodging of such reports does not in itself indicate criminal activity has occurred, but does indicate that a transaction had been earmarked for closer scrutiny.

The public broadcaster quoted the Financial Intelligence Office saying that the types of activities that have triggered reports so far this year are similar to those that triggered STRs filed in 2014.

There were 1,812 STRs in 2014, up by 14 percent from the previous year. The gaming sector generated 1,370 reports – or 75.6 percent – of the 2014 submissions.

The intelligence office had said in its bulletin on the 2014 reporting period that conversion of gaming chips without a record of gambling activities or with minimal gambling was the most common trigger that year for a suspicious transaction report, accounting for 766 cases.

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