The Unit received 162,059 suspicious transaction reports (STRs) in 2025, an increase of 11.5 per cent compared with 2024. The rise was due to contributions from newly registered reporting entities, particularly online banks, and was mostly linked to online scams and cyber fraud. There was a reduction in the share of STRs classified as posing a low or zero money laundering risk, as well as an improvement in the timeliness of STR submissions.
The FATF Mutual Evaluation of Italy's anti-money laundering system was completed at the beginning of 2026. It confirmed the substantial effectiveness of the entire prevention and enforcement framework, also recognizing the central role of the UIF in producing high-quality financial analysis.
The growth in crypto-assets, virtual IBANs, virtual cards and non-bank ATMs is making money laundering trails even more opaque. The widespread use of digital communication tools is being accompanied by a significant increase in STRs linked to online scams and cyber frauds. Money laundering connected to tax evasion, misuse of public funds, and corruption increasingly exploits specialized criminal networks, which use sophisticated transnational financial infrastructures to obscure the trail of illegally obtained funds.
The UIF's inspection activity found shortcomings in compliance with active cooperation obligations, which limited the ability to detect suspicious transactions. Significant risks remain in the gambling operators' sector and in gold trading, linked to limitations in the traceability of transactions and customer profiling.
Strategic analysis continued to examine the methods and the impacts of criminal infiltration into the legal economy. In-depth studies by UIF focused on the risks faced by financially fragile businesses, the geo-criminal potential of organizations with extensive transnational logistical and financial networks and channels, and the technological, regulatory and market profiles of crypto-assets, highlighting their specific risks relating to money laundering and terrorist financing.
Cooperation with the judicial authorities mainly concerned investigations into organized crime, online scams and cyber fraud, money laundering and self-laundering, terrorism, tax offences, unauthorized financial activity and drug trafficking. Initiatives were launched to increase the use of the dedicated SAFE portal for information exchanges with the judicial authorities and with investigative bodies.
Information exchanges with foreign Financial Intelligence Units increased further compared with 2024, also benefiting from the transition to the new FIU.net Next Generation platform, used to manage communications among EU FIUs, which was completed at the beginning of 2025.
The additional international sanctions against Russia and Belarus, together with the reintroduction of restrictive measures linked to Iran's nuclear proliferation activities, required the UIF to expand its work, both with regard to its own functions and to the tasks delegated to it on this matter by the Financial Security Committee.
The institutional framework of AMLA was completed during the year with the start of the General Board's work. AMLA published its programming document setting out its strategic objectives and launched the activities necessary to perform its functions. In Italy, the UIF is participating in the interinstitutional discussions launched to adapt the national legal framework to the AML Package.
In December 2025, the UIF published the new Instructions for reporting suspicious transactions, drafted in cooperation with the Finance Police, which place particular emphasis on the assessment process for identifying and reporting suspicious transactions.
