Prevention of Money Laundering and the Role of Asset Recovery

The purpose of this paper is to examine the increasing emphasis of the UK anti-money laundering (AML) legislative framework, on the financial arrangements of criminals. Our qualitative study engaged key stakeholders from the AML environment through a series of focus groups. This included law enforcement; accountants; prosecutors; bankers and, importantly, ex-offenders. We argue that the inclusion of the views of a traditionally hard to reach group of ex-offenders, adds significantly to knowledge and understanding about effectiveness of AML. The research findings suggest that, at first glance, the focus on asset recovery has been successful. However, our respondents shared with us areas of tension and inconsistencies in application of the law, in particular between police and the courts. For example, whether it was better to prosecute the predicate offense separately or in addition to the offense of money laundering; or whether to pursue criminal or civil recovery. We further find that criminals have been able to use their knowledge to circumvent the system, suggesting that greater effort is needed to promote cooperation rather than competition in successfully detecting and prosecuting offenders

What are the factors that influence the effectiveness of anti-money laundering policy implementation in the UK? Exploring money laundering crime and policy

Anti-Money Laundering has become the term for many stakeholders including Financial Institutions and law enforcement agencies that attempt to prevent the movement of money obtained from criminal activity. This research combines two important areas within the money laundering arena: Anti-Money Laundering preventative measures and Anti-Money Laundering Policy. This study aims to discover significant determinants that influence the current anti-money laundering policy (AML) by understanding the relationship between criminal activity, stakeholder activity and public policy. This research adopts a pragmatic approach which embraces the use of mixed methods. The strategy using mixed method (triangulation) approach for data collection increase the rigor and robustness of the research in terms of exploration, validation and confirmation of findings. From a pragmatic perspective a better understanding of the research problem could be achieved that overcomes complexities in the context of the research, such as access to key stakeholders. The research question “What are the factors that influence the effectiveness of AML policy implementation in the UK?” is answered using a four phase approach to data collection and analysis that incorporates theme identification from literature, focus group interviews, survey questionnaire and verification of factors through individual participation. The findings of the research point to three areas of activity that could be confirmed as areas in which policy changes can be applied. These are ‘sentencing’ as a deterrent to crime; ‘reporting regime’ for suspicious activity reports, and ‘criminal knowledge’ based on law enforcement tactics’. The methods used also provided an abundance of additional material that set the findings in their appropriate environment