[Photo: Supplied]

TAIPAN is the latest addition to Fiji Financial Intelligence Unit’s technology solutions, a system that provides analysis, particularly on large data sets, which the FIU currently has in its database.

According to FIU Director Razim Buksh, 165 financial institutions are currently registered on their online reporting system.

Buksh says an average of over 200,000 financial transactions are reported electronically each month to the FIU.

As at August 2022, the FIU database received over 24 million financial transaction reports from financial institutions since on-line reporting commenced in 2008.

There are currently 203 authorized users of this system.

Buksh says 99.99% of all financial transaction reports are received online from the financial institutions.

He adds that the FIU continues to invest in IT solutions to drive its core reporting, operational, and strategic processes.

In 2021, the FIU disseminated 418 intelligence reports on 952 individuals and 384 entities to its law enforcement partners.

Buksh says the Fiji FIU has disrupted hundreds of cyber scams and fraudulent transactions in Fiji.

The Fiji FIU has also identified several hundred foreign cybercriminals and their syndicates that have been blacklisted from receiving funds from Fiji.

The costs associated with the development and implementation of TAIPAN were met by the Australian government.

The Director acknowledged the Australian government and AUSTRAC for providing this system to the Fiji FIU, noting that partnerships like this one are key to combatting serious and organized crime in Fiji and across the Pacific region.

AUSTRAC Deputy CEO Intelligence, Dr John Moss, says their partnership with Fiji will help to build financial intelligence capability and ensure the Pacific Islands are not seen by criminals as soft targets to launder criminal proceeds.