Austrac has published a new financial crime guide, in partnership with the Australian Federal Police and Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, to help businesses identify and stop the purchase of child sexual exploitation material and report suspicious activity.

By only using financial analysis it is difficult to differentiate between the purchase of adult services, scam activity and the sexual exploitation of children.

No single financial indicator will reveal if an account is being used for child sexual exploitation purposes.

Instead, financial service providers should use a combination of indicators highlighted in the guide and knowledge of their business to conduct further monitoring and consider submitting a suspicious matter report (SMR) to AUSTRAC.

Austrac says indicators include frequent transfers of small amounts.

Transactions enabling the sexual exploitation of children can be small value and are generally under $500.

Offenders can often send multiple payments on a single day or over consecutive days, and sometimes go days and weeks between payments

The guide contains other information to assist the development of profiling and transaction monitoring programs by financial service providers to target, identify and stop financial transactions associated with the sexual exploitation of children.

If you found this article helpful, then subscribe to our news emails to keep up to date and look at our video courses for in-depth training. Use the search box at the top right of this page or the categories list on the right hand side of this page to check for other articles on the same or related matters.

Author: David Jacobson
Principal, Bright Corporate Law
Email:
About David Jacobson
The information contained in this article is not legal advice. It is not to be relied upon as a full statement of the law. You should seek professional advice for your specific needs and circumstances before acting or relying on any of the content.