ABSTRACT

It discusses the historical and institutional development of the AML standards as linked to organised crime and terrorism and identifies the FATF standards as the centre of the political strategy adopted for both. In this context the work of the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as that of the United Nations (UN) are introduced as relevant to the depicting of the network. Overall, the paper conceptualises the crime-terror nexus, not alike other literature,2 but looking at how IGOs have succeeded in joining efforts towards common objectives. The paper looks not at the problem of organised criminality or terrorism from an ideological perspective but rather at the structure surrounding the policies that have been created to combat them and the ways in which it was impacted by the relevant IGOs and its network. Therefore, it begins by exploring the concept of IGOs and their network-forming capacity. It continues to demonstrate how AML-related institutions form a policy network around the issue, in what ways that network is contributing to the tackling of the crime-terror nexus and which issues arise from it.