YEREVAN, August 22. /ARKA/. Over the past five years the Financial Monitoring Center (FMC) of Armenia’s Central Bank CBA has investigated about one thousand reports about suspicious transactions, provided by Armenian banks, FMC head, Daniel Azatian, told a news conference today.

"This year, we have already received about 150 reports about suspicious transactions. They are being investigated and, if necessary, all information is passed  to law enforcement agencies," he said.
According to Mr. Azatian, suspicions are largely caused by transactions made by using cards, as well as by transactions with checks. He said a case was reported involving abuse of authority by employees of banks while concluding transactions.

"Over the past five years as a result of our joint work 18 court rulings were made and five cases involving  fraud and money laundering are being investigated now by courts," he said.
Azatian said Armenia has never been considered by the international community, in particular the Council of Europe, as a country with a high risk of money laundering, in contrast to, for example,  Azerbaijan and Ukraine. He said in recent years the FMC received about 36 inquiries from international financial intelligence agencies, up from 18 in 12 months last year.
The FMC  was founded December 14, 2004. -0-