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Over 121,000 Indians have been categorised as high-risk individuals in global anti-money laundering (AML) databases. The number could go up further as newer individuals get identified by various agencies.
These Indians are among the 1.4 million people listed as risk entities from across the world. The database gets updated daily with about 25,000 records getting added on average every month.
"This should not sound sensational as India is the second-most populated country and one in every seven persons in the world is an Indian," said the CEO of a foreign bank operating in India.
The AML database is compiled by the IntegraScreen Group, a Singapore-based company having research centres in Mumbai, Beijing, Amman, Penang and Shenzhen.
It is used by know-your-client (KYC) compliance service providers for background checking of customers of investment banks and retail banks, apart from multi-national companies, governments, law enforcement and intelligence agencies and private intelligence companies.
When a customer approaches a bank to open an account or a company reaches out to an investment bank for services, the names of the individual and the people associated with the company immediately get cross-checked with the AML database.
In India, most foreign banks and a few Indian banks use the services of IntegraScreen, the lone KYC compliance service provider here.
"We only do background checking of new customers of our clients for KYC purposes. Our job ends there and at the end of the day, we don't know what kind of relationship our clients carry on with bad clients," said Michael Short, MD (business development), IntegraScreen Group.
