FIU hit by staffing shortages…70 people review 1.3 million cases

Agency size just one-ninth of that in advanced economies

The scale of Korea’s government agency responsible for inspecting and supervising money-laundering crimes has been found to be as little as one-ninth that of major advanced economies. This is why calls are growing to strengthen national capabilities to respond to increasingly sophisticated money-laundering schemes.

According to financial authorities on the 4th, the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), under the Financial Services Commission, has a total staff of 71. Across five divisions, it analyzes financial crimes and carries out the management and supervision of virtual asset service providers. It began with around 50 staff when it was launched 25 years ago. The financial sector believes investigative manpower is far from sufficient relative to the expanding scale of money-laundering crimes.

Australia’s AUSTRAC, which operates in a similar form to Korea’s FIU, has as many as 600 employees. Unlike the FIU, which has only one director-level (Director General for Institutional Operations and Planning) manager, it has 17 director-level units.

The U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and Germany’s FIU, which play similar roles, employ 550 and 750 people, respectively. FinCEN is an independent agency under the U.S. Department of the Treasury and is organized into six major departments.

A financial industry official said, “Suspicious money-laundering transactions surged to as many as 1.3 million cases last year, but the reality is that with limited resources it is difficult to carry out work that meets international standards,” adding, “We need to build a global-standard anti-money-laundering infrastructure.”

Reporter Park Jae-won wonderful@hankyung.com