Germany restructures Financial Intelligence Unit to increase efforts against Money Laundering

German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble has announced Germany’s plans to increase its efforts against money laundering and the financing of terrorism by restructuring and expanding its Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).[1] The special unit is intended to be henceforth directly subordinated to the Federal Customs Service (Bundeszollverwaltung) which is a German executive and fiscal administrative unit of the federal government and part of the Federal Ministry of Finance. Previously, the FIU had been assigned to the Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which itself is under the Federal Ministry of the Interior’s control. The strategic objective of this change is to allow the FIU to work more effectively and independently.