ABSTRACT
Before being partially replaced by the even more fearful term ‘terrorist finance’ (Levi, 2003b), the phrase ‘money-laundering’ had generated an emotive value of its own, especially if connected to the phrase ‘organized crime’ (Van Duyne, 1998b). We have already recounted the image of the world swamped by drug money stemming from an evil industry. According to the (erroneous) traditional UN claims, the global trade in illegal drugs exceeds that of iron and steel (see Reuter and Greenfield, 2001).1 Against this threat, law enforcement agencies have been mobilized world wide, though more in rhetoric than in resources. Irrespective of the validity of the claims concerning the real volume of the crime-money or the urgency of the threat, the FATF did succeed in cajoling (or coercing) and imposing its recommendations on virtually all the industrialized countries of the world and non-industrial off-shore financial centres. It would be a mistake to see this as a crude imperial venture by the G7. Some measures were welcomed by some public-and private-sector elements in most countries who were in favour of greater social responsibility in commerce (see Levi, 2003a). However, it would be an even greater mistake to believe that these measures would have been arrived at as a purely voluntary arrangement. The most important elements of the recommendations have been put into place. Among others, these concern: the penalization of moneylaundering, the recording of account-holder and account details, and obligation to pass these on to properly constituted requests for mutual legal assistance; the training of financial institutions and other regulated staff with a duty to report ‘suspicious transactions’ to the authorities;2 and the
establishment of properly trained financial intelligence units to deal with those reports.
