The Garda Bureau of Investigation will examine further the role of individual bank officials who have opened bank accounts for customers in bogus or fictitious names, Chief Superintendent Frank Glacken has told The Irish Times. Also, banks that have failed to take action after being informed by the garda that specific accounts in their branches are bogus or fictitious will be examined and could face prosecution under the 1994 Criminal Justice Act, he warned.
However, the Irish Bankers Federation, which represents 50 financial institutions, said its members have co-operated fully with the garda in the application of the act. It asked why Mr Glacken had not made his complaints about the failure of some financial institutions to comply with the act to the steering committee set up to monitor the implementation of the act. The Garda Bureau of Fraud is represented on the committee.
"If we think the terms of the 1994 Criminal Justice Act have been breached, we will investigate the matter and report to the Director of Public Prosecutions", Mr Glacken said. Bank officials and financial institutions are required to report suspicious transactions to the bureau. Because "suspicious" is a subjective term and it is not defined by the act, it is sometimes difficult for the bureau to act against particular institutions or individual bank officials, he explained. However, Mr Glacken said that the case where an account was opened in a fictitious name and the bank was subsequently informed by the garda that it was in a fictitious name - but did not take any action - was being examined very carefully.
In an interview on RTE on Sunday, Mr Glacken commented that a number of major financial institutions were failing to comply with the terms of the 1994 act, by not bringing suspicious transactions to the attention of the bureau or by being selective in the way they were interpreting the legislation. In one institution, a bogus account was opened and a stolen cheque was lodged in it. The bank was informed by the garda that the account was in a fictitious name but, instead of informing the garda about the stolen cheque, the bank returned the cheque to the account holder, he said. The institution refused to co-operate and "rather glibly told us they have hundreds of these accounts" he said.
Mr Glacken said it was very difficult for the garda to identify fictitious accounts without having other reasons to investigate the account holder. "We tumbled across this case because of other investigations," he said. The whole purpose of the 1994 act is that the person opening the bank account must satisfy the institution involved that the name and address given is correct, he stressed. Responding the Mr Glacken's comments, the Irish Bankers' Federation said in a statement that, as the body representing over 50 banking institutions, it had co-operated fully from the outset "with the garda and other authorities in the adoption and application of the money laundering provisions" of the 1994 act.
This co-operation was clearly reflected in the significant increase in the number of reports of suspicious activity and "in the banks' participation (together with the Fraud Squad and others) in the work of the Money Laundering Steering Committee". The committee was set up in 1994 to monitor the implementation of the act. According to the IBF, the garda or the Department of Justice have not expressed dissatisfaction or concerns at the steering committee "of the kind raised in the RTE interview". Declining to discuss his contributions to the committee, Mr Glacken said he highlighted at a money laundering conference last March that financial institutions were not complying fully with the 1994 Criminal Justice Act and asked what did the Irish Bankers' Federation do about it.
