New questions for company facing laundering probe

Remittance companies must monitor all transactions carried out by their clients in order to identify unusual movements and take the necessary measures to prevent their operations from being carried out with funds or on funds from activities related to money laundering crimes. of capital or the financing of terrorism reports La Prensa.

This is specified in the agreements issued by the Superintendence of Banks of Panama (SBP), one of the regulatory entities of the activity.

Thus, with all the provisions that exist in this matter, no one would expect a remittance company to handle their funds as if they were the product of an unregulated activity, with which their transactions would remain outside the sieve of the inspection and the report of possible suspicious activities.

Since 2019, Inversiones Rapid Money, SA deposits its funds in the bank account of Importadora Ricamar, SA, charged in the Odebrecht money laundering case.

This triangulation would be carried out after Inversiones Rapid Money, SA had its account closed in Capital Bank, at the end of September 2019.

Since then, company deposits have been made in Ricamar’s account at Bac Credomatic, without the latter having a license from the SBP for the remittance business.

Rapid Money, SA –which is registered with the SBP to carry out this business– has had to be under the inspection of the SBP. But it is unknown if the regulator has found irregularities that have been reported, for example, to the Financial Analysis Unit (UAF).