ICA in collaboration with the UK Home Office for the Flag it Up! campaign

We aim to inspire, educate and enable our global community of compliance specialists to perform to the highest standards of professional practice and conduct so we are pleased to announce our ongoing commitment the UK Home Office ‘Flag it Up’ campaign.

Serious and organised crime costs the UK at least £24 billion each year and this joint initiative aims to raise awareness of the warning signs of money laundering, and help professionals protect themselves and their firms.

The campaign aims to increase:

• awareness of the money laundering threat and the consequences of becoming involved
• understanding of the role professions can play in disrupting money laundering
• adoption of preventative behaviours, which mitigate risk such as submitting Suspicious Activity Reports to the NCA.

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Campaign partners include HM Treasury, HM Revenue and Customs, the Serious Fraud Office, the National Crime Agency, Ministry of Justice, the Metropolitan Police and various legal and accountancy bodies.

Liz Baker, Head of Proceeds of Crime Division, Serious Fraud Office, said:

“Due diligence isn’t just about ticking a number of boxes. It’s about taking a step back from the boxes and asking yourself some very sensible questions such as: does the underlying rationale for this arrangement make sense?

"If you’ve carried out proper, careful due diligence then you will survive a regulatory inquiry. If you haven’t, you run the risk that either you personally, or your firm, or both, will be at the wrong end of an inquiry which could result in professional sanctions, and potential monetary sanctions as well.”

Organised crime is a danger to the UK economy and can drag unsuspecting businesses into a serious trouble - destroying hard-won reputations in the blink of an eye. With professional services firms being targeted by money launderers with increasingly sophisticated methods, the Government and businesses are fighting back through the Flag it Up campaign, which aims to educate and protect the professional services sector from this evolving threat.

The Home Office is working with professional services firms, and with the International Compliance Association, through its Flag It Up! campaign to help honest enterprises avoid becoming enablers of crime.

We will be working with the Home Office over the coming months to bring you exclusive webinars and content that aims to raise awareness of money laundering and organised crime as part of our Big Compliance Conversation campaign.

Recognition. Knowledge. Community.

Join the #BigCompConvo in conjunction with the Home Office and ‘Flag it Up’. 

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If you’d like to contribute an article as part of the Big Compliance Conversation and Flag it Up! get in touch with us at contributions@int-comp.org