Australia has set up a cyber-intelligence unit to identify terrorism financing, money laundering and financial fraud online, the government said on Tuesday, because of “unprecedented” threats to national security.

The measure expands on a major platform of conservative Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who narrowly won re-election last month after promising to improve the country’s cybersecurity and transform the economy into a tech-savvy business hub.

Justice Minister Michael Keenan said the new unit, set up under money-tracking agency the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC), would investigate online payment platforms and financial cybercrime to crack down on money-laundering and criminal networks.

“We know that the use of fraudulent identities continues to be a key enabler of serious and organised crime and terrorism,” Keenan said in a statement.

The statement said the new AUSTRAC unit would work with the Australian and New Zealand government-funded identity support service, ID Care, to target job recruitment scams that crime syndicates used to recruit innocent people to traffic money between jurisdictions.

The new unit would also work with the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network to identify patterns and trends that could indicate large-scale financial scams or their methodology, Keenan said.

In February, unknown hackers tried to steal nearly $1.33 billion from the Bangladesh central bank’s account at the US Federal Reserve Bank, and succeeded in transferring more than $100 million to four accounts at RCBC in Manila.

– Reuters