§ Mr. Austin MitchellTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many accountants have been prosecuted by her Department for failure to report suspicions of money laundering to the National Criminal Intelligence Service. [100524]
§ Mr. Bob AinsworthI have been asked to reply.
The table gives the number of defendants proceeded against in England and Wales for the offence of failing to disclose knowledge or suspicion of money laundering under section 52 of the Drug Trafficking Act 1994 during the period 1994 to 2001.
It is not possible separately to identify which of these defendants are accountants in the statistics collected centrally.
The Drug Trafficking Act offence has been replaced by section 330 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 which came into force on 24 February 2003. This new offence only applies to persons who suspect money laundering in the course of a business in the regulated sector. Accountants will be brought within the regulated sector by means of new Money Laundering Regulations to be made later this year.
1143W
Number of defendants proceeded against at magistrates' courts and found guilty at all courts for failure to disclose knowledge or suspicion of money laundering'1,England and Wales 1994 to 20012 Defendants proceeded against Defendants found guilty 1994 — — 1995 1 — 1996 — — 1997 — — 1998 — — 1999 1 — 20003 1 — 2001 — — 1Offence is under Drug Trafficking Act 1994, Sec 52. 2 These data are on the principal offence basis. 3 Staffordshire Police were only able to submit sample data for persons dealt with at magistrates' courts in 2000. Although sufficient to estimate higher orders of data, these data are not robust at a detailed level and have been excluded from this table.