A payment platform with millions of customers worldwide has been ordered to appoint an external auditor as part of an industry-wide crackdown on money transfers for child sex abuse material.<\/p>\n
The Australian Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) conducted a spot check of 15 online payment platforms to see if the businesses were flagging and reporting transactions considered suspicious \u2014 a legal requirement.<\/p>\n
AUSTRAC said it “easily” found 45 customers it suspected of sending money overseas to watch children engage in illegal sexual acts, both live and in pre-recorded material.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The rings have been described as a “very profitable endeavour”. (ABC News: Liam Patrick)<\/p>\n
The financial crimes regulator turned over its findings to law enforcement, though it was unclear if any action had been taken against those customers.<\/p>\n
“If these [online payment] businesses just identify one offender, we can use that identification to identify a whole network of other offenders,” chief executive Brendan Thomas said.<\/p>\n
“The networks that run these kinds of rings are also doing other things like drug running and other kinds of money laundering, and this is a very profitable endeavour for them.”An industry on notice<\/p>\n
Mr Thomas said WorldRemit, an online payment platform with 5.7 million customers in more than 130 countries, was the business with the most concerning monitoring and reporting practices.<\/p>\n
AUSTRAC ordered the London-headquartered company to appoint an external auditor before considering if “further regulatory action”, such as a court case, was needed following a review.<\/p>\n
Zepz Group, which owns WorldRemit, said it constantly updated its systems, controls and governance.<\/p>\n
“WorldRemit is regulated by AUSTRAC, and we strive to maintain a positive and productive relationship with our regulator in Australia, as we do with all of our regulators globally,” a company spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
“As a matter of policy, we do not comment on specific regulatory matters publicly.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Online payment platforms can orchestrate more overseas transfers than the largest banks. (ABC News: Liam Patrick)<\/p>\n
Another business could also have an external auditor appointed, though AUSTRAC declined to name them, saying it could jeopardise its investigation.<\/p>\n
Four other online payment platforms were sent “letters of concern”, Mr Thomas said, while a notice was issued to other businesses in the industry.<\/p>\n
Online payment platforms can orchestrate more overseas transfers than the largest banks, AUSTRAC said, adding that suspected offenders usually make frequent transfers between $10 and $500, disguising them with labels such as “school uniform” or “medical costs”.<\/p>\n
One customer, $745,000 in transfers to 82 people<\/p>\n
AUSTRAC provided an example of an online payment provider that it claims repeatedly dismissed system-generated warnings about a customer’s transfers over 18 months.<\/p>\n
The unnamed customer transferred $745,000 to 82 people, 90 per cent of which were females.<\/p>\n
He claimed to have been a teacher for more than 30 years on his profile, including in the Philippines, Thailand and Cambodia \u2014 countries considered hot spots for child sexual abuse.<\/p>\n
The regulator said its campaign found “multiple examples of high-risk customers like this one that should, in AUSTRAC’s view, have been identified by the businesses”.<\/p>\n
Trying to stop money flowing to child sex abuse<\/p>\n
AUSTRAC conducted the spot check after suspecting some online payment platforms were not reporting customers with suspicious money transfers.<\/p>\n
It targeted the companies that make the most transfers to countries where child sexual abuse material was widespread, believing it was high-risk for money laundering.<\/p>\n
Mr Thomas said reporting suspicious transactions early was critical in catching offenders quickly and preventing more children from being harmed.<\/p>\n
“[Child sex abuse material] is helping fuel the obscene passions of paedophiles in Australia, and they might then seek to satisfy those passions in other ways,” he said.<\/p>\n
The Australian Federal Police and its Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, both of which work with AUSTRAC to investigate cases of paedophilia, declined to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A payment platform with millions of customers worldwide has been ordered to appoint an external auditor as part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,18073,63,168544,99,168547,168551,168549,168545,168550,168546,168548],"class_list":{"0":"post-293327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-austrac","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-transactions-and-reports-analysis-centre","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-chief-executive-branden-thomas","14":"tag-child-sex-abuse-material","15":"tag-child-sex-exploitation","16":"tag-financial-crimes-regulator","17":"tag-how-child-sex-abuse-offenders-use-online-payment-services","18":"tag-online-payment-businesses","19":"tag-worldremit"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}