The Court of Auditors notes deficiencies in the money laundering control systems in Spain and asks the Government to launch a national strategy and to provide more resources to the body responsible for this activity, Sepblac.
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In a report, the court acknowledges that there are no official statistics on money laundering, although in 2024 Sepblac received indications of operations of this type amounting to 46,894 million, while Europol estimates suspicious transactions at around 20,000 million. These figures, it says, “reflect the importance of the problem.”
However, it regrets that “a national strategy for the prevention of money laundering policy” has not been defined, in which specific objectives or indicators are set to assess efforts to reduce these operations.
It also estimates that 193 people are dedicated in Spain to controlling and preventing these practices, once those of the Bank of Spain, the CNMV, the Civil Guard, the Tax Agency, and Sepblac itself are added up.
Therefore, it asks the Government to adopt “the pertinent measures to ensure the adequate provision of human, technical, and financial resources.” The European directives themselves indicate that the financial intelligence unit must “obtain and employ the necessary resources to perform its functions.”
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A five-year job in five countries
This report from the Court of Auditors is part of a joint initiative to audit in parallel how capital control is supervised in Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and Cyprus. It is the result of an analysis between 2020 and 2024.
Spain, it concludes, has incorporated European regulations into national legislation and has followed the international recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). However, there are shortcomings, starting with the lack of a strategy with specific objectives and indicators to assess the measures adopted.
“There is no real data for its assessment nor is it possible to determine the specific contribution to the results of each measure,” the court laments when trying to evaluate anti-money laundering policies. More information should be collected and communicated both to Congress and to Sepblac itself, it states.
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