About Gibraltar Financial Intelligent Unit
The Gibraltar Financial Intelligence Unit (GFIU) was established in January 1996 to facilitate the receipt, analysis and dissemination of suspicious transaction reports or suspicious activity reports (STRs/ SARs) made by financial and other institutions in accordance with the Drug Trafficking Act 1995, Terrorism Act 2018, Gambling Act 2005 and Proceeds of Crime Act 2015.
It is currently staffed by officers from the Royal Gibraltar Police, HM Customs and the Civil Service. The GFIU functions in accordance with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Recommendations and Standards and is evaluated by the Council of Europe Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism (MONEYVAL).
The GFIU maintains a database of all the disclosures and other financial intelligence arising out of any enquiries conducted into them. The disclosures are allocated to law enforcement agencies such as the HM Customs Gibraltar, the Royal Gibraltar Police or other regulatory body for action. GFIU also provides feedback to financial institutions and through its outreach programme Project Nexus it aims to enhance awareness on money laundering, terrorist financing, human trafficking and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It also aims to improve working practices, increase communication fluidity and create a forum in order to keep abreast with current legislation, dynamic financial obligations and the evolving methods used by criminals and terrorists to launder money.
The GFIU’s Corporate Communication Strategy lays the foundation for a strategic approach to effective internal and external communications, and how we intend to implement it over the next three years. It provides a framework for achieving specific communication objectives and supports the implementation of a structured program which we expect will contribute to raising awareness on economic crime.
In July 2004, the GFIU was accepted as a full member of the worldwide Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units.
GFIU Corporate Communication Strategy
Functions
to gather, store, analyse and disseminate intelligence related to criminal conduct, (including but not limited to money laundering, the financing of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction), transacted or attempted to be transacted through relevant financial businesses;
to exchange information regarding criminal conduct with FIUs and other similar bodies and law enforcement agencies within and outside of Gibraltar;
to act as the recipient for disclosures of suspicious transactions under the relevant applicable legislation;
to consent or deny consent to suspicious transactions of which it has been notified, in accordance with POCA 2015.
Strategic Plan
Delivering the GFIU’s Strategic Plan 2020-23 can only be achieved by working together collaboratively with our partners and the private sector. We must, therefore, remain flexible in our response to the evolving threat landscape and future challenges. This strategic plan is intended to address these in a dynamic way but we must also recognise that not every desired resource will always be made available.
Our main planning assumptions for this strategic plan are based on six priorities. These priorities are informed by the findings of our Mutual Evaluation Report published by Moneyval (Council of Europe) and also in line with the FATF’s Standards.
We will measure our progress against the priority goals of the plan through a combination of quantitative statistics, case studies, and other data available to us, which will demonstrate the changes and improvements that have taken place.
