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Leicester estate agent fined £12,000

A Leicester-based estate agent has been fined nearly £12,000 after failing to comply with anti-money laundering regulations.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) launched an investigation into IPS estate agents after a series of checks carried out in 2011.

Under the Money Laundering Regulations 2007, the firm failed to verify the identity of customers and did not keep appropriate records to comply with procedures.

OFT also found the relevant staff within the company were not appropriately informed of laws relating to money laundering and terrorist financing, nor were risk-sensitive policies appropriately established by IPS.

Regulation failures occurred between March 2010 and October 2011, and the estate agent has subsequently been fined a total of £11,844.

Kate Pitt, OFT’s deputy director of anti money laundering, commented: “This fine sends out a message to all estate agents that they need to have appropriate measures in place to prevent their business from being used for money laundering or terrorist financing purposes.”

Image from TaxFix.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .