Accountants reminded to be ahead of AML curve as AFP cracks down

The Financial Crime and Money Laundering Working Group (FCML) and the Australian Government Fraud Fusion Taskforce (FFT) have jointly executed 33 search warrants across the country as part of a national crackdown on Commonwealth Fraud.

The FCML is a working group of Commonwealth, state and territory law enforcement, intelligence and regulatory partners and focuses on tackling serious financial crime and money laundering.

The FTT comprises 24 different agencies and is co-led by the NDIA and NDIS Commission, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and focuses its efforts on high-risk and serious criminal activity targeting government programs designed to help those “most in need”.

The operations between the two taskforces disrupted more than $50 million in aged fraud across six individual investigations following the Financial Crime and Money Laundering Working Group's plan to target the finances of organised criminal groups.

According to the AFP, this was the first FFT activity to have Commonwealth powers utilised by state policing agencies as part of a coordinated effort to disrupt organised criminal groups defrauding the Commonwealth to fund illicit ventures.

Jason Kennedy, AFP commander, said organised crime groups that sought to defraud the government programs, such as NDIS, were on notice.

“The AFP works closely with its partners in the Fraud Fusion Taskforce to create a force multiplier and stop targeted fraud that ultimately steals the money of honest and hard-working Australians,” he said.

“Members of our community have allegedly been targeted, exploited and threatened by groups looking to fill their own pockets and steal public funds set aside for Australians who are reliant on this support.

“The AFP will not stop in its pursuit of these groups who chop and change companies in a cynical effort to hide their criminal behaviour from law enforcement.”

News of this national crackdown and continued efforts to stop money laundering in its tracks comes just months before Tranche 2 of the AML/CTF reforms are set to start on 1 July 2026.

With these incoming reforms, the findings are a timely reminder for accountants to be ahead of the curve in understanding how they can effectively identify and stop money laundering in its tracks, as well as ensure firms are compliant with the legislation.

Brendan Thomas, chief executive of AUSTRAC, said accountants, like all reporting entities, were required to understand the full scope of the rules and that they played a part in the nationwide crackdown.

The core of the AML/CTF regime for the accounting profession was risk awareness and customer due diligence, Thomas added.

“Governance is critical. It’s the responsibility of the business leadership to understand its money laundering risks and to ensure that appropriate controls are in place and working.”

“We want accountants to be confident that they know who they’re dealing with and that the person is who they say they are, not a front for a third party of a shell company.”