Larnaca: The AMLA OLAF working arrangement, signed on 21 October 2026, gives the EU’s new anti-money laundering authority and the European Anti-Fraud Office a formal channel to exchange information on laundering, terrorist financing, fraud and corruption. The two bodies signed the document in Brussels, and it rests on Article 94 of the Anti-Money Laundering Authority Regulation. AMLA Chair Bruna Szego and OLAF Director-General Petr Klement both gave statements, although neither announced a timeline for the first joint cases.
Under the AMLA OLAF working arrangement, OLAF can contribute to joint analyses coordinated by AMLA, provided the participating Financial Intelligence Units consent. The focus is money laundering linked to fraud against the EU budget. That link matters because investigators often trace subsidies or customs duties to the start of a chain, then lose the trail when funds move through bank accounts in several countries.
OLAF has the track record to bring to the table. Its 2025 report, published on 20 April 2026, recommended recovery of 597 million euros to the EU budget and prevented 18 million euros from being spent unduly. Over the past decade OLAF reports about 6.8 billion euros recovered. The office opened 254 investigations in 2025 and closed 209 with recommendations.
The arrangement fits a busy October for the office. On 20 and 21 October, OLAF and Cyprus Customs hosted the annual tobacco conference in Larnaca, with partners from Egypt, Georgia, Morocco and Ukraine, covering Mediterranean smuggling, e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches. On 23 October OLAF and Dublin City Council co-chaired the Waste Shipment Enforcement Group in Brussels, ahead of the EU ban on exporting plastic waste to non-OECD countries that takes effect in November. On 29 October OLAF announced that it had helped seize more than 3,560 counterfeit packs of cannabis-infused gummies.
Institutional questions sit behind the operational news. On 18 September the Commission adopted its evaluation of the OLAF Regulation and concluded that it remains broadly fit for purpose. It identified room for improvement in information exchange, cooperation with the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, access to financial information and follow-up to OLAF’s financial recommendations. The AMLA OLAF working arrangement speaks to the third of those gaps.
The office also wants a bigger role in the next budget. At the anti-fraud coordination services conference on 6 and 7 October, which gathered more than 120 experts from 36 countries, Klement called the proposed 2028-2034 budget a game changer. Its performance-based design gives national authorities a larger part in preventing fraud, which makes data sharing with bodies such as AMLA more valuable.
Resources remain a constraint. OLAF says it has lost 110 permanent positions in 15 years, and its 2025 report cites sanctions circumvention and support for Ukrainian customs among growing duties. A working arrangement costs little to sign, but the AMLA OLAF working arrangement only produces results if analysts have time to run joint cases, and OLAF has fewer of them than it once did.
What to watch next is practical. The Financial Intelligence Units must consent case by case, and the first joint analysis will show whether the AMLA OLAF working arrangement changes recovery rates or only adds paperwork. Neither body has said when that test will come.
