Bulgaria’s Financial Intelligence Agency (FIA) received 376 reports about suspicious operations and transactions worth 199,327,646 euros last year, the agency’s annual report, quoted by the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA), shows.

Analysis shows that while in 2005 commercial banks’ suspicious operations accounted for 38.68% of all reports received through the year, in 2006 their share expanded to 71.39%. In 2004 their share was 46.06%, and in 2003 – 56.52%.

Cases of reported complicated financial activity resulting in alleged money laundering have also grown. If in 2004 the amount of money, related to suspicious activities reported by the banks, was 64,779,497 euros, in 2006 this amount increased to 123,082,771 euros.

Last year the agency received a total of 235,000 notifications about cash operations involving more than 30,000 leva or their equivalent in foreign currency. Most of the notifications were sent by commercial banks.

By order of the minister of finance five operations with financial assets worth a total of 1,915,136 euros were stopped.

The full text of the annual report can be found on the internet site of the Financial Intelligence Agency.