102 criminal proceedings initiated based on the information provided by FIU Latvia

55% of all criminal proceedings initiated in 2019 concerned autonomous money laundering offences.

There has also been an increase in the number of criminal proceedings transferred for prosecution – i.e., in the first half of 2019, 27 criminal proceedings out of 40 offences, compared to 8 criminal proceedings out of 8 offences, in the first half of 2018.

In the first half of this year, the most common predicate offences in Latvia resulting in subsequent laundering of proceeds were tax and economic offences, as well as fraud and bribery (professional crimes).

In the first half of 2019, 22 criminal proceedings were initiated on the avoidance of cash declarations (transportation across the Latvian border), which is 90% more compared to the first half of 2018.

In order to facilitate the fight against financial crime and ensure the rapid and coordinated mutual exchange of information, 35 public-private partnership meetings were held in the first half of 2019. The amount of funds frozen in cases where the public-private partnership meetings have taken place constitutes almost EUR 49 million.

To ensure a common understanding of risks and consistent supervisory practices, FIU has established a platform for cooperation between supervisory and control authorities. Since November 2018, meetings of the Supervisory Platform have been held on a regular basis, creating a common understanding of supervisory approaches, and improving cooperation, awareness and feedback between supervisory and control authorities of the subjects of the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorism and Proliferation Financing Law.

In the first half of 2019, institutions used the Supervisory Platform to agree on a common procedure for the identification of beneficial owners, discuss the efficiency of reporting suspicious and unusual transactions, and participate in the identification of current money laundering typologies and risk indicators.