In 2021, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) closely followed the priorities of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, and implemented the major work arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council. Actively engaging and assisting in anti-money laundering (AML) investigations, the PBOC collaborated with relevant departments to intensify efforts against money laundering and terrorist financing crimes, and gave full play to the significant role of AML work in safeguarding financial security, improving national governance, and promoting two-way opening up. Furthermore, it made efforts to enhance the collective strength of AML work, and worked with relevant member departments of the Anti-Money Laundering Joint Ministerial Conference to vigorously crack down on various money laundering crimes and their upstream crimes in accordance with the laws. Substantial progress has been made in areas such as combating organized crimes and rooting out local criminal gangs, counter-terrorism, anti-corruption, anti-drugs, anti-tax evasion, and crackdown on underground banking. This led to a substantial year-on-year increase in the number of cases sentenced under Article 191 of the Criminal Law, which pertains to money laundering crimes. Additionally, breakthroughs were made in the sentence for “self-laundering” cases in many parts of the country.
In 2021, PBOC branches received over 16,000 key suspicious transaction clues. After screening, more than 690 of these clues that required thorough investigation were subjected to over 7,300 AML probes, and over 6,800 clues were forwarded to investigation and supervision authorities. The branches assisted investigation and supervision authorities in conducting over 35,000 AML probes into more than 3,000 cases and cracking over 1,000 suspected money laundering cases.
