Pawnshop staff suspected of money laundering
|
|
For the first time in Finland, pawnshop employees are under suspicion of money laundering.
In the early part of 2006, the Jyväskylä unit of the National Bureau of Investigation, Finland's central criminal police, interrogated nine Helsingin Pantti Oy pawnshop employees on suspicion of money laundering during 2004-2005 with the intent of making a profit. The preliminary investigation has just been completed.
Nearly 40 loans against pawns were under scrutiny, the pawns of which included 525 items of stolen gold and jewellery. The monetary value of the items is in the tens of thousands of euros.
The articles of value were pawned at four different pawnshops in Helsinki and Vantaa.
In Finland, pawnshops are included in the scope of compulsory registration. When giving out loans against pawns, the pawnbroker's employees are under obligation to find out the origin of the pawned articles, and, where necessary, to notify the authorities of money laundering suspicions.
According to the police, in this case the obligations of looking into the origin of the articles and notifying the authorities were not adhered to once.
The police say the pawnshop employees have violated the law on money laundering as well as the caution obligations mentioned in the law on pawnbroking.
The crime suspicion is based on the interpretation that the pawnshop employees' conduct has made it possible to collect money against stolen property.
The employees deny the allegations.
The pawned items originate from a series of residential break-ins, the main culprit of which was sentenced to five and a half years' imprisonment in March of this year.
The stolen gold and jewellery items had multiple identifiers, based on which establishing their origin should have been a simple task. Furthermore, many of the individuals seeking loans against these items were old clients who had never collected their previous pawns.
The main culprit's seven helpers, who sought loans against pawns, were convicted already in March for money laundering and concealment crimes. They had taken both the money and the receipts from the pawnbroker to the main perpetrator.
The police have retrieved all the pawned articles but have managed to track down the original owner for only some of the items. Money laundering with the intent of making a profit was added to the penal code three and a half years ago, but this is the first such case brought to the attention of the prosecutor.
The operation of pawnbroking shops is regulated by the Finnish Financial Supervision Authority, who were made aware of the preliminary investigation.
Helsingin Sanomat
