Several international banks have marked Sri Lanka as a high risk jurisdiction for money laundering, the Sunday Times reported.
Sri Lanka has been flagged after leaked documents were analysed by hundreds of journalists worldwide, including the Sunday Times, as part of a global effort led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Many Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) relating to transactions involving Sri Lankans were found among the leaked documents.
SARs reports are records of money movements banks compile and submit to the US Department of the Treasury when they suspect a possibly suspicious activity.
Sri Lanka was flagged as a high risk jurisdiction for money laundering and other financial crimes alongside the United Arab Emirates, India, Cyprus, Egypt, and Indonesia.
Transactions linked to money laundering, terrorism financing or other crimes, odd dealings, transactions by individuals known or suspected to have links to criminal or terrorist organizations, and law enforcement surveillance requests are a few factors considered for the SARs report.
The leaked documents dubbed FinCEN files were mostly filed by a few large banks such as Deutsche Bank (982), Bank of New York Mellon (325), Standard Chartered Bank (232), JP Morgan Chase (107), Barclays (104) and HSBC Bank (73).
Together they filed more than 85% of all SARs in the leak which were organized and analysed by over 100 media outlets from 88 countries for nearly 16- months. (NewsWire)