SOCA publishes 2012 SARs report

11 Jan 2013

SOCA has published statistics on suspicious activity reports (SARs) received from October 2011 to September 2012. A notable feature was that the number of SARs was significantly greater than the previous year.

18 December 2012

The Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) Annual Report 2012 is published today. The Report represents the SARs Regime Committee’s review of the operation and performance of the SARs Regime from October 2011 to September 2012.

The Report focuses on the performance of the UK Financial Intelligence Unit (UKFIU) against the third and final year of the three-year strategy for the SARs Regime set out in 2009.

This report is part of SOCA’s ongoing commitment to communicate regularly with reporters of SARs, end users and other stakeholders.

Key aspects of the SARs Annual Report 2012 include:

• Case studies demonstrating where SARs have been used by investigators to identify and tackle a wide range of crimes.
• The number of SARs received by SOCA continues to increase (up by over 30,000 from last year).
• Restraint sums arising from refused consent requests have increased by 20%.
• In response to the Information Commissioner’s review of the operation and use of the SARs database, the new policy on the retention and deletion of SARs has been successfully implemented. Over 745,000 SARs have been deleted following implementation of the policy.
• There were no confirmed breaches of SARs confidentiality.

The report can be downloaded here http://www.soca.gov.uk/news/498-sars-regime-annual-report-2012

Notes

1. Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) are reports of the suspicion of money laundering or terrorist financing submitted under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 or the Terrorism Act 2000 as amended by the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. They are sent to the UK Financial Intelligence Unit (UKFIU) in SOCA which receives more than 200,000 SARs a year. The UKFIU processes the reports and makes them available to accredited financial investigators within all law enforcement agencies, where they are used to help investigate all levels and types of criminal activity, from benefit fraud to international drug smuggling, to human trafficking and terrorist financing.

2. Membership of the SARs Regime Committee consists of:

• SOCA
• Association of Chief Police Officers
• British Bankers’ Association
• Financial Services Authority
• Her Majesty’s (HM) Revenue & Customs
• HM Treasury
• Home Office
• Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales
• Law Society of England and Wales
• Metropolitan Police Service
• National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit

(Source: SOCA Publishes 2012 SARs Report) http://www.soca.gov.uk/news/498-sars-regime-annual-report-2012