Money laundering cases hit record in Switzerland

Switzerland said on Monday its money laundering monitoring agency received a record number of ‘suspicious activity reports’, involving the highest ever amount of over $3.2 billion in 2011, but such requests from foreign countries fell last year. While it did not disclose the name of countries whose Financial Intelligence Units have sent the requests, the Money Laundering Reporting Office of Switzerland said it has replied to most of these inquiries, within an average of five days following their receipt.