The purpose of a financial intelligence unit
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A financial intelligence unit collects and analyses reports of suspicious financial activity, usually submitted by banks and other regulated businesses, looking for patterns that might indicate money laundering, corruption or the financing of serious crime. Its work sits at the intersection of law enforcement and financial regulation.
Because banks generate an enormous volume of transactions daily, the unit's real value lies in filtering that volume down to the handful of reports that genuinely warrant deeper investigation, then passing those referrals on to police or other agencies equipped to pursue them further. Most suspicious activity reports never become a criminal case.
Effective units depend heavily on cooperation from the private sector, since a bank that under-reports suspicious activity, whether from caution or convenience, starves the unit of the very information its analysis depends on. Strong working relationships between regulated industries and the unit are quietly as important as the analytical tools it uses.