More unusual notary transactions declared suspicious

Last year, the Financial Intelligence Unit-Netherlands (FIU) declared 538 unusual transactions reported by civil-law notaries suspicious. In 2019, there were 177. This is evident from the 2020 annual report of the Financial Intelligence Unit-Netherlands (FIU).

Notaries reported fewer unusual transactions last year than in 2019. The number of reports by notaries decreased from 1,317 in 2019 to 1,060 in 2020. In 2019, there was a 65 percent increase compared to 2018. The number of notaries filing a report decreased slightly, from 322 in 2019 to 295 in 2020.

Increasing numbers
According to the annual report, a total of 722,247 unusual transactions were reported to the FIU in 2020. In 2019, this figure was 2,462,973. However, in 2019, the vast majority consisted of reports based on the high-risk countries designated by the European Commission. These reports are no longer required as of October 2019. Excluding related transactions, the number of reported unusual transactions in 2019 amounted to 541,236. Based on this figure, there was a 33 percent increase in 2020. This continues the trend of increasing numbers of reported unusual transactions.

15 billion euros
In 2020, the FIU declared a total of 103,947 transactions suspicious, with a total value of almost 15 billion euros. The majority of suspicious transactions originated from payment service providers and banks. In 2019, the number of transactions declared suspicious was 39,544. The significant increase in 2020 is the result of, among other things, investments in capacity and strengthening effectiveness and efficiency through improvements in technology, knowledge, and expertise at the FIU.