Private schools could be laundering money, the security minister warned today as he launched the government’s serious crime strategy.

Ben Wallace said schools, football clubs and luxury car dealers were among organisations that should be alert to illicit money being laundered through them and report any suspicions to the National Crime Agency (NCA).

“We have to make sure that when the [criminals] go out to try to spend their ill gotten gains, that we all take a role in asking: does this pass the sniff test?” he said.

If a parent turned up to a school trying to secure a place for their child and there was reason to be suspicious, he urged heads to do “the google test” to see if they had been sanctioned by any agency or had criminal connections, he told the BBC.

“At the very least make a report to the NCA, flag it up which is the government campaign if it doesn’t smell right. If the agency comes back and says it’s wrong, that’s fine. At the moment we are not being proactive enough.”

Estate agents, high street solicitors and accountants who are suspected of facilitating some £100bn of money laundering are also being targeted in the new strategy over their failure to report suspicious activity.