International Crime
Korean money launderers are expected to face a tougher business situation, as the Korean government will push for exchanges of money launderer lists with the U.S. and Asian countries. According to industrial sources, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) under the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) proposed exchanging Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) with six Asian nations in an APG meeting held in New Zealand in July.
They are China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macau. The six countries are suspected of being hotbeds for money laundering by Koreans and Korean companies. The STR system makes it obligatory for financial companies to report illegal financial transactions to financial regulators.
Countries around the world are exchanging such STR data with one another. But exchanges of data are done one by one when they were requested. But the conclusion of a project agreement will bring data in lump sums to Korea, elevating the efficiency of investigations a great deal.
The FIU has pursued a second agreement with the U.S. since the beginning of this year, and is close to inking the deal. The FIU recently signed an agreement with the U.S. for the first time in 2012. Recently, it signed with Japan. The FIU received an STR about 6,000 Koreans in the U.S. and 600 Koreans in Korea, and shared the report with the National Tax Service.
In 2012, U.K.-based Tax Justice Network announced that Koreans stashed a whooping US$779 billion abroad as of 2012. This amount places third after China (US$1,189 billion) and Russia (US$798 billion won). The government is preparing various measures, judging that overseas money laundering and tax evasion are very serious.
The enforcement of a multilateral taxation information exchange agreement beginning in September 2017 will enable Korea to exchange taxation information with 50 countries, including tax havens such as the U.K., Germany, and the Virgin Islands.
Earlier this year, the Korean government was planning to implement an automatic Korea-U.S. taxation information treaty, but failed to do it within this year as the National Assembly has not passed it yet.
Instead, the government is implementing a policy to not punish those who voluntarily come clean about their hidden assets in overseas countries from Oct. to March of next year.