Transnational Organized Crime


Book Description

Transnational organized crime interferes with the everyday lives of more and more people - and represents a serious threat to democracy. By now, organized crime has become an inherent feature of economic globalization, and the fine line between the legal and illegal operation of business networks is blurred. Additionally, few experts could claim to have comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the laws and regulations governing the international flow of trade, and hence of the borderline towards criminal transactions. This book offers contributions from 12 countries around the world authored by 25 experts from a wide range of academic disciplines, representatives from civil society organizations and private industry, journalists, as well as activists. Recognizing the complexity of the issue, this publication provides a cross cultural and multi-disciplinary analysis of transnational organized crime including a historical approach from different regional and cultural contexts. Conception: Regine Schönenberg and Annette von Schönfeld.




Investment of Criminal Proceeds into the Legitimate Economy


Book Description

This book explores the infiltration of Italian and Russian organised crime in the UK real estate market, assessing how vulnerable the UK is to these sorts of activities. It identifies the drivers behind the criminal choices and modus operandi of Italian and Russian organised crime groups, and the factors causing their mobility abroad. Investment of Criminal Proceeds into the Legitimate Economy broadens our knowledge on the relationship between criminal agency and criminogenic opportunity in a socio-economic and legal context. This book offers a critical insight into the criminal actors and operations of Italian and Russian organised crime groups, such as money laundering schemes in the real estate sector, whilst also exploring the role of crime facilitators. Drawing on interviews with prosecutors, law enforcement agents and investigative journalists, Investment of Criminal Proceeds into the Legitimate Economy explores how criminal investments adversely affect both law enforcement operations and socio-economic development in this area. An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, law, organised crime, policymakers, and all those interested in how Italian and Russian organised crime operates in the UK real estate market.




Money Laundering and the International Financial System


Book Description

The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and national and international economic developments.




Reference Guide to Anti-money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism


Book Description

Efforts to launder money and finance terrorism have been evolving rapidly in recent years in response to heightened countermeasures. The international community has witnessed the use of increasingly sophisticated methods to move illicit funds through financial systems across the globe and has acknowledged the need for improved multilateral cooperation to fight these criminal activities. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund have developed this guide to help countries understand the new international standards. It will hopefully serve as a comprehensive source of practical information for countries to fight money laundering and terrorist financing. It discusses the problems caused by these crimes, the specific actions countries need to take to address them, and the role international organizations, such as the Bank and the IMF, play in the process. This guide is a tool for countries to establish and improve their legal and institutional frameworks and their preventive measures according to international standards and best practices. -- From Foreword (p. ix).




Chasing Dirty Money


Book Description

Originally developed to reduce drug trafficking, efforts to combat money foundering have broadened over the years to address other crimes and, most recently, terrorism. In this study, the authors look at the scale and characteristics of money laundering, describe and assess the current anti-money laundering regime, and make proposals for its improvement. -- From back cover.




Anti-Money Laundering in a Nutshell


Book Description

Anti–Money Laundering in a Nutshellis a concise, accessible, and practical guide to compliance with anti–money laundering law for financial professionals, corporate investigators, business managers, and all personnel of financial institutions who are required, under penalty of hefty fines, to get anti–money laundering training. Money laundering is endemic. As much as 5 percent of global GDP ($3.6 trillion) is laundered by criminals each year. It’s no wonder that every financial institution in the United States—including banks, credit card companies, insurers, securities brokerages, private funds, and money service businesses—must comply with complex examination, training, and reporting requirements mandated by a welter of federal anti–money laundering (AML) laws. Ignorance of crime is no excuse before the law. Financial institutions and businesses that unknowingly serve as conduits for money laundering are no less liable to prosecution and fines than those that condone or abet it. In Anti–Money Laundering in a Nutshell: Awareness and Compliance for Financial Personnel and Business Managers, Kevin Sullivan draws on a distinguished career as an AML agent and consultant to teach personnel in financial institutions what money laundering is, who does it, how they do it, how to prevent it, how to detect it, and how to report it in compliance with federal law. He traces the dynamic interplay among employees, regulatory examiners, compliance officers, fraud and forensic accountants and technologists, criminal investigators, and prosecutors in following up on reports, catching launderers, and protecting the integrity and reputations of financial institutions and businesses. In particular, corporate investigators will gain rich insights winnowed from the author's experiences as a New York State and federal investigator.




The Scale and Impacts of Money Laundering


Book Description

"Money laundering is a problem of some magnitude internationally and has long term negative economic impacts. Brigitte Unger argues that today, money laundering is largely linked to fraud and that it is not only small islands and tax heavens that launder, but increasingly industrialized countries like the US, Australia the Netherlands and the UK. Well-established financial markets and growing economies with sound political and social structures attract launderers in the same way as they attract honest capital. The book gives an interdisciplinary overview of the state-of-the-art of money laundering as well as describing the legal problems of defining and fighting money laundering. It then goes on to present a number of economic models designed to measure money laundering and applies these to measuring the size of laundering in the Netherlands and Australia. The book also gives an overview of techniques and potential effects of money laundering identified and measured so far in the literature. It adds to this debate by calculating the effects of laundering on crime and economic growth. This book will be of great interest to lawyers, financial experts, economists, political scientists, as well as to government ministries, international and national organizations and central banks."--Jacket.




Finance & Development, March 2012


Book Description

Young people, hardest hit by the global economic downturn, are speaking out and demanding change. F&D looks at the need to urgently address the challenges facing youth and create opportunities for them. Harvard professor David Bloom lays out the scope of the problem and emphasizes the importance of listening to young people in "Youth in the Balance." "Making the Grade" looks at how to teach today's young people what they need to get jobs. IMF Deputy Managing Director, Nemat Shafik shares her take on the social and economic consequences of youth unemployment in our "Straight Talk" column. "Scarred Generation" looks at the effects the global economic crisis had on young workers in advanced economies, and we hear directly from young people across the globe in "Voices of Youth." Renminbi's rise, financial system regulation, and boosting GDP by empowering women. Also in the magazine, we examine the rise of the Chinese currency, look at the role of the credit rating agencies, discuss how to boost the empowerment of women, and present our primer on macroprudential regulation, seen as increasingly important to financial stability. People in economics - C. Fred Bergsten, American Globalist. Back to basics - The multi-dimensional role of banks in our financial systems.




Ill-Gotten Money and the Economy


Book Description

Many developing countries have introduced policies to tackle ill-gotten money over the past years. Perception remains that such moves were more a result of international pressure being exercised than genuine ownership of such an agenda. There is not enough analysis and literature of how an anti-financial crime framework does (or does not) contribute to the development path of developing countries or how best to use these tools in a developing country environment. This study was aimed at initially exploring the effects of ill-gotten money or proceeds of crime and anti-money laundering policies on economic development. The study focused on two developing countries: Malawi, (a low-income country) and Namibia (an upper-middle-income country). The starting point of this analysis is that anti-money laundering is essentially a tool to address criminal activities and that, as a result, understanding criminal activities and how proceeds of crime impact development. The purpose of this study was: (i) to provide an initial answer to the question if and how measures to address proceeds of crime contributes to economic development; and (ii) to develop a framework that enable governments in developing countries to analyze the main sources of ill-gotten money and its effects on the economy.




Governing Borderless Threats


Book Description

'Non-traditional', border-spanning security problems pervade the global agenda. This is the first book that systematically explains how they are managed.