CRED 12.1 Introduction

Money laundering is the process by which persons attempt to conceal the true origin and ownership of the proceeds of criminal activity. Anyone successfully 'laundering' these proceeds will ultimately be able to provide an apparently legitimate cover for their source of income. There are many ways that money laundering might occur in a credit union, for example where members offer large lump-sum payments which are not part of their normal payment pattern or they may make numerous small payments for shares so that the total of each deposit is unremarkable, but the total of all the credits is significant. Reluctance to provide normal information when opening an account (even when taking account of the financially disadvantaged nature of some potential credit union members) should alert staff to a potential money laundering situation.