Since 1997, in over nine years of activity, the Financial Intelligence Unit has received more than 57,000 reports of suspicious transactions, of which nearly 3,000 in connection with alleged financing of international terrorism; about 2,000 were dismissed directly (see table). Nearly 90 per cent of the reports were made by banks.
In 2003 the Bank of Italy ran a campaign to increase the awareness of the banks that had never sent reports. From the responses received, it emerged that the nature of some banks’ operations meant it was unlikely suspicious transactions would be intercepted at them.