"As of this morning, we are no longer making inquiries to banks through the enforcement register because we do not want to downplay the chancellor of justice's mandate. If the chancellor says that, in her opinion, there is no legal basis for making inquiries through the enforcement register, then so be it," he said.

Mäeker said this means that the FIU will now receive account statements with a delay of a week or more, as they have to make inquiries via email.

"Account statements are in PDF format, and we analyze them manually instead of using technological solutions. This also means more resource use for banks, which now have to answer our questions on paper. The whole process becomes slower, and our ability to prevent money laundering is diminished," Mäeker said.

"As a society, this is the situation we are in. I am not blaming anyone here; I am simply saying that we need to have these dialogues, validate and update mandates, and then see what tools we can use to combat such a serious type of crime that harms both Estonia's economy and our people," he added.

Mäeker explained that the core of the issue lies in the fact that the chancellor of justice argues that the law is not precise enough and she cannot determine whether lawmakers intended to give the FIU the right to make inquiries via the enforcement register or not.

"We believe we do have that right," Mäeker said. "The chancellor of justice now says that in her view, since individuals' fundamental rights are so heavily impacted when bank accounts are examined, such a right should be explicitly stated. That's the point of contention. We have assessed, and still assess to this day, that it would be justified, but the chancellor sees it differently."

From the beginning of last year until March of this year, the FIU has requested bank account statements through the enforcement register just under 2,000 times.

Mäeker said that 2,000 is the total number of inquiries and does not necessarily mean each one involved a bank account statement.

"We may have also asked who the actual beneficiary of the account is. I do not have on hand today the exact number of times we have actually requested bank accounts. For background, I can say that the FIU receives about 15,000 reports of suspicious transactions from banks each year," Mäeker said.

The Office of the Chancellor of Justice Ülle Madise has found that government agencies have been accessing account holders' banking information through the enforcement register without a proper legal basis. State institutions have made tens of thousands of inquiries to banks over the past year.

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