Our correspondent Andreas Frank reports; Meanwhile, a report commissioned by the Police Directorate (Politidirektoratet) found Norwegian police and prosecutors focus on petty crimes and drug crimes when investigating money laundering, and do not pay enough attention to economic crime.

Swedish law professor Dan Magnusson analysed all the money laundering and illegal goods handling cases closed under the Oslo police district in 2012. “The results of the survey suggest that the tax authorities, trustees in bankruptcy, the prosecution and the police are unable to identify and investigate money laundering,” Magnusson said. “Neither does the court seem to have an ambition to raise money laundering as a crime that should have a general deterrent effect.”

Norway has comparatively few money laundering cases. Part of Magnusson’s survey was to identify if cases had been wrongly classified, skewing the results. His report showed both illegal handling of goods cases misclassified as money laundering, and vice versa, but was most concerned by the fact most cases related to drug crime, not the economic organized crime the legislation is focusing on.

“We are not satisfied with the conclusions the report reaches about a lack of effort in the area of money laundering,” said Torgeir Magnussen, an inspector with the Police Directorate. “It is remarkable that he did not find money laundering in economic crime in the material he has gone through.”

The report covered a third of the criminal handling and money laundering cases in Norway, but excluded cases investigated by the national economic crime unit Økokrim. Magnussen said the directorate will ask the Police University College (Politihøgskolen) to do a similar investigation at Økokrim.
Politi PressRelease 26.3.14
GOV ML Report 26.3.14