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"It is not Cuba, but rather the United States that is the central country for money laundering in the world," Johana Tablada, deputy director for North American policy at Cuba's Foreign Ministry, said in a statement to Reuters.

U.S. prosecutors in Miami have charged a South Florida man with funnelling into Cuba more than $30 million (19 million pounds) obtained illicitly from Medicare, the U.S. federal health insurance program for the elderly.

They said there was no evidence that the Cuban government was involved, although some Miami news reports cited outside experts who said it had to be aware such large amounts of money were flowing in.

Prosecutors said the money was moved to Cuba through foreign shell companies and banks in Canada and Trinidad, including Republic Bank of Trinidad's Havana branch.

So far, Republic Bank officials have not responded to requests for comment.

Tablada said foreign banks in Cuba "are obligated to operate in strict adherence to international and Cuban regulations and must answer for the trustworthiness of their transactions and the correct use of their accounts to pass lawful operations."

Cuban banks have "a mechanism of vigilance and supervision," directed by the country's central bank, to detect fraud, Tablada said.

Cuba also cooperates with banks elsewhere to detect fraud, but, due to the longstanding U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, not with American banks, she added.

Because of U.S. policy toward Cuba "this type of collaboration does not exist with North American institutions," she said.

Because of the embargo, "transactions that Cuba makes with foreign banks are done in different currencies from the United States dollar, which causes substantial losses to our finances," she said.

(Reporting by Jeff Franks; Editing by David Adams, Tom Brown and Vicki Allen)

Such a move would effectively involve printing money to buy government bonds, in turn lowering British borrowing costs.

Coming on the back of last week's announcement of new BoE and government measures to spur lending to businesses, it underlines the depth of concern that exists about the state of Britain's economy as its main trading partners weaken.

The first of last week's new lending measures also took effect on Wednesday, when the Bank gave banks 5 billion pounds of low-interest six-month loans. The banks were urged by the Bank to take the money, sources told Reuters.

Minutes of the BoE's last policy meeting showed officials split 5-4 against launching a new round of monetary stimulus by buying government bonds, a form of quantitative easing, significantly with Governor Mervyn King in favour.

A Reuters poll taken after the minutes came out showed that economists now see a 80 percent chance of another round of QE next month.

The last time the MPC was so divided was in June 2007 - when officials split 5-4 over whether to raise interest rates on the eve of the financial crisis - and the previous time King was in a minority was August 2009, when he also wanted more QE than the consensus.

The minutes show far stronger support for more stimulus than many economists had expected, and follow the announcement last week of new Bank and government and help Britain's economy, which returned to recession late last year.

They also gel with the mood of other authorities around the world in the face of weakening global growth and massive uncertainty about the euro zone, which combines to rival the United States as the largest economy in the world.

The U.S. Federal Reserve is under pressure to authorise more stimulus later on Wednesday at the end of a two-day policy meeting, while the People's Bank of China cut interest rates two weeks ago in a surprise move.

The BoE's Monetary Policy Committee said the global economy was slowing and that risks to Britain and the rest of the world from financial distress and political tension in the euro zone had intensified.

“"Most members judged that some further economic stimulus was either warranted immediately or would probably become warranted in order to meet the inflation target," minutes of the June 6-7 meeting said.

British sovereign bonds outperformed German government debt after the news, as markets bet the bank would soon restart its programme of quantitative easing.

QE is designed to help the economy by making borrowing cheaper and has already led to 325 billion pounds of British government bond purchases.

"The vote in June was much closer than many had been expecting," said Citi economist Michael Saunders. "It's clear the MPC are heading for further QE soon in large scale and I think it's highly important that the governor has switched his vote on that."

The Bank called a halt to new gilt purchases in May, largely because inflation was proving slower than forecast in falling back to its 2 percent target.

But this month the Bank said inflation was now likely to be lower than forecast, in part because of falls in oil prices and less generous wage deals as well as risks from the euro zone. Since the MPC meeting, inflation dropped unexpectedly to 2.8 percent from 3 percent.

QE NOT CERTAIN NEXT MONTH

Last month external Bank member David Miles was the only official to call for an expansion of QE, but this month he was joined by King and external member Adam Posen in urging an extra 50 billion pounds of purchases.

Paul Fisher, the BoE's executive director for markets, supported a 25 billion pound increase.

The Bank policymaker Ben Broadbent - one of the five to oppose more QE this month - told Reuters in an interview that the case for more QE had increased, but that he would want to look at the impact of new Bank and government schemes to boost credit before agreeing to more gilt purchases.

Despite the closeness of the vote, some economists said it would be wrong to see more QE next month as a done deal.

"The immediate reaction on the minutes when you see a 5-4 is QE is imminent, and they are flagging it coming. But I don't think it is entirely as black and white as that," said Scotiabank economist Alan Clarke.

In the minutes, some MPC members had said they wanted to see the outcomes of Greek and French elections before deciding on more QE. Both took place last weekend, and Greece appears to have formed a government that broadly supports the country's existing bailout.

The government's options to stimulate the economy are limited due to its commitment to eliminate most of Britain's big budget deficit over the next five years - putting much of the onus on the Bank.

Demand for the 5 billion pounds lent on Wednesday appeared muted as the Bank had to lend some of the funds at the minimum 25 basis point premium over its 0.5 percent Bank Rate that it was willing to accept.

Anthony O'Brien, strategist at Morgan Stanley, said the result suggested that "the need for liquidity is not as bad as possibly people thought it might be", and that the terms on which the Bank accepted lower-grade collateral were relatively unattractive.

The Bank asked big banks to participate in the operation, in order to remove any stigma attached to taking what could be seen as emergency cash, several people familiar with the matter said.

(Additional reporting by Alessandra Prentice, Olesya Dmitracova, Steve Slater and Sven Egenter. Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.)