Japan

Japan Financial Intelligence Center (JAFIC) is the sovereign FIU of Japan, which exists in the form of a specialized administrative division of the Organized Crime Department within the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the National Police Agency (NPA). Operated under the supervision of the National Public Safety Commission, it operates as a law enforcement-style FIU rather than an independent administrative or regulatory agency. JAFIC acts as the national command center that is responsible for stopping illegal financial flows, disrupting financial structures, and fighting against transnational organized crime groups. It connects financial intelligence and criminal prosecution by providing direct intelligence support to the public prosecutor, judges, and international law enforcement agencies.

Japan Financial Intelligence Center (JAFIC) works as the centralized national clearinghouse for financial intelligence through collection, analysis, and dissemination of information about money laundering, terrorism financing, and organized crime. It acts as the central depository of all the Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) submitted by the regulated institutions, including banks, securities companies, real estate agents, and attorneys, through the use of data analytics, and works to trace any illicit transaction network. Upon identifying any suspicious transaction, the JAFIC analyzes the financial intelligence and passes it directly to public prosecutors and police departments for conducting criminal investigations and freezing of assets. In addition, as a full member of the Egmont Group, JAFIC engages in cross-border information sharing with foreign financial intelligence units in collaboration with domestic administrative agencies to produce annual national risk assessments and compliance typologies.