Money Laundering Bulletin

The only state in the former Yugoslavia to be admitted to the European Union on 1 May has created an impressive AML framework, says Sue Grossey. How well it works in practice though and whether it will serve as a model for Slovenia’s near neighbours remain open questions.

Awash with recently-passed legislation and newly-established Financial Investigation Units, the small nations of the Caribbean have transformed their money laundering controls since the mid-1990s. In 2000, five Caribbean island jurisdictions made up one-third of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) list of fifteen non-cooperative countries and territories, each of them with ‘serious systemic problems,’ in the words of a FATF review of that year. All have now been de-listed, as has Grenada, which was added to the FATF’s list in September 2001, although careful international monitoring of these and other jurisdictions is a continuing process. In this extended two-part survey, Mark Wilson,a specialist in Caribbean affairs, based in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, examines local and regional anti-money laundering frameworks and specific vulnerabilities.

What is it about art and antiques, other than their intrinsic appeal, that makes them so attractive to the launderer? Timon Molloy explores the opportunities with Julian Radcliffe, chairman of the Art Loss Register, which maintains the world’s largest private international database of lost and stolen art, antiques and collectibles.

Reporting by Timon Molloy, Editor

Money launderers may be hard to track down but it takes not dissimilar tenacity to coordinate diaries with the leading financial crime lawyers and AML consultants. MLB persevered to good purpose as the following dialogue over lunch with Monty Raphael, senior partner at Peters and Peters, and Cliff Knuckey, MD of RISC Global, the anti-money laundering consultancy, and recently retired head of Scotland Yard’s Money Laundering Investigation Team, reveals. Timon Molloy, MLB’s editor, chipped in occasionally.