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  3. Duties and responsibilities under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002

Guidance

Duties and responsibilities under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002

This advice explains how operators can make sure they and their employees comply with their obligations under The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA).

Published
13 November 2020

Last updated
18 October 2024 - Changes

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  1. Contents
  2. Part 1 - Introduction and summary of the advice
  3. 3 - The role of gambling operators

3 - The role of gambling operators

Operators have a responsibility to uphold the three licensing objectives set out in the Gambling Act 2005 (the Act)(opens in new tab). The first of those licensing objectives is to prevent gambling from being a source of crime or disorder, being associated with crime and disorder, or being used to support crime.

As described in Purpose of the advice, money laundering in the gambling sector takes two main forms:

  • exchanging money, assets, goods and property that were acquired criminally for money or assets that appear to be legitimate or 'clean' (so called classic money laundering). This is frequently achieved by transferring or passing the funds through some form of legitimate business transaction or structure
  • the use of criminal proceeds to fund gambling as a leisure activity (so called criminal or 'lifestyle' spend).

In order to avoid committing offences under POCA, operators should report instances of known or suspected money laundering by customers to the National Crime Agency (the NCA) and, where a defence (appropriate consent) is requested, wait for such defence (consent) to deal with a transaction or an arrangement involving the customer, or wait until a set period has elapsed before proceeding.

Operators should be aware that there is no minimum financial threshold for the management and reporting of known or suspected money laundering activity.
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