Suspicious international wire transfers at local banks grow

The headquarters of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) located on Yeouido, Seoul / Yonhap

Total of abnormal remittances reaches $6.54 billion

By Anna J. Park

As a follow-up to the ongoing investigation into suspicious international money transfer transactions of over 4.1 trillion won ($3.37 billion) over the last year at Woori Bank and Shinhan Bank, other major local banks have also spotted records of abnormal international remittances during the past year, amounting to some $3.15 billion.

In total, a whopping $6.54 billion in suspicious international money transfers took place over the past year at various local banks.

According to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) on Sunday, 26 companies are being investigated for involvement in suspicious international remittances of $3.39 billion at Woori and Shinhan banks.

The amount is $200 million more than the previous number of abnormal remittance transactions calculated at the two banks by the financial authority at the end of last month.

Another 46 companies have turned out to be involved in other local banks' suspicious international wire transfers amounting to a total of $3.15 billion during the past year. Taken together, a grand total of $6.54 billion in abnormal remittance transactions occurred across local banks last year.

The numbers were figured out as the FSS ordered other local banks last month to look closely into their remittance records during the past year for similarly suspicious international money wire transfers to those that took place at Woori and Shinhan Banks.

Suspicious remittance cases include the transfers of huge sums of money by unknown small business entities in comparison to their capital assets, illegal transfers of money according to the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, far too frequent deposit transactions at banks that operate linked accounts with local cryptocurrency exchanges or remittances of money to overseas companies owned by the same or closely linked people as the senders.

The FSS' current investigation into Shinhan Bank is slated to be completed by Friday of this week, while the financial watchdog agency plans to conduct additional investigations into other banks that reported cases of abnormal remittance transactions. The financial authority plans to share the results of its investigations with other related government agencies, including the Korea Customs Service.

“The FSS will take stern measures to illegal acts confirmed during the investigation, according to related laws and procedures, while it plans to share the information with related government agencies,” an official from the FSS said.