Reports of anomalous financial transactions rose by more than 36 percent last year compared with the same period in 2009, the country's anti-money laundering agency said on Monday.

Yunus Hussein, chairman of the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK), said the spike was caused in part by the increased number of institutions required to report suspicious deals.

As of Dec. 26, he said, the PPATK had received 63,440 reports on suspicious transactions from 334 institutions. The previous year, 302 agencies flagged 46,576 such transactions.

Banks, stock brokers, investment managers, money changers and insurance companies are required to disclose their records to the PPATK.

The majority of 2010 reports were cleared of suspicion, but 1,425 reports were believed to be linked to criminal activities.

Among the PPATK's findings were 54 deals related to embezzlement, 64 indicating fraud and 11 showing bank violations. The center said five reports were related to terrorism, four to gambling, 20 to bribery, 26 to narcotics crimes and eight to theft.

Since its founding in 2004, the PPATK has analyzed over 2,400 suspicious transactions, with 92 percent of these reports passed on to the National Police for further investigation.

Several reports signaling criminal activity were also submitted to prosecutors' offices. So far, only 26 cases have ended in convictions.

In two cases handled by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), investigators used data from the PPATK to prosecute 36 errant lawmakers, 10 of whom were later found guilty of malfeasance.

Despite the growing number of financial crimes detected by the PPATK, Yunus said, law-enforcement agencies had often failed to successfully pin down guilty parties. "Money-laundering prevention and eradication has not been optimum," Yunus said.

He said there was a need for "better coordination and partnership between public institutions to build an anti-money laundering culture in Indonesia."