ABSTRACT
It may be helpful to begin by addressing the question ‘risk to whom of what?’. Financial crime takes many forms, and has very different sets of victims – if, indeed, any specific victims at all: these forms may have as a common core only the legal presumption that by virtue of their having been criminalised, they offend against the State or public weal.1 In addition to the laundering of the proceeds of diverse crimes from drugs trafficking to tax evasion, committed within or outside the jurisdiction of the financial institution’s territory, it includes:
• crimes by elite against consumers, clients or other, lower status businesspeople;
• crimes by small businesspeople against consumers and employees;
• crimes by professional criminals against elite/large corporations;
• crimes by blue-collar persistent offenders/opportunists against financial institutions;
• crimes by individuals of various status against government (tax evasion/social security fraud);
• computer hacking by insiders/outsiders for the purpose of financial gain.
