Money Laundering Bulletin

The French call it a coup de foudre – a thunderbolt. It’s that instant and intense feeling of love, and I’m lucky enough to have felt it twice, writes Sue Grossey. The first was when I saw the man who is now my husband, on my second day at university – as my father said ruefully at our wedding, the poor lad didn’t stand a chance. And the second was when I was working as a freelance writer and was asked to put together a book chapter on money laundering. I’d heard the phrase before, of course, and knew vaguely that it was criminal and not to be encouraged, but as to its endless beauty and variety and complexity – well, that was the thunderbolt. I knew then that I wanted to learn more, and here I am, nearly 15 years later, spending every working day thinking and reading and writing and talking about money laundering. True love, you see, does last forever.

‘A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’ – Churchill’s summation of Russia is an apt description of its non-transparent financial crime agenda. In carrying out due diligence and monitoring, there are, though, patterns that AML professionals should heed as Rosie Hawes and Lisa Osofsky of Control Risks explain.

Second only to direct involvement in money laundering, the best way to learn the whys and wherefores must be to talk to those who investigate it, day in, day out. Detective Inspector James Clancey, Head of the Money Laundering Unit, City of London Police (COLP) and John Unsworth, Senior Analyst, National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), which is also based in the Economic Crime Directorate in the same force, made time to speak to MLB editor,Timon Molloy.

An MLRO is currently standing trial in Southwark Crown Court for alleged failure to report: if found guilty, the courts are not inclined to be lenient, warns Shula de Jersey of Russell Jones & Walker.

Syria and Iran are both designated by the US State Department as sponsors of terrorism, while the countries’ major state-run banks are blacklisted by the US Treasury Department, through the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). But when plans to create a joint venture bank between the two countries, to be established in the Syrian capital Damascus, was quietly announced in 2008, the deal attracted surprisingly little attention internationally.

The UK’s Bribery Act sets a new international standard in stringency, covering both public and private sector disbursements, with no exception for facilitation payments as well as a corporate offence of failing to prevent bribery. Ian Trumper of FTI Consulting and Robert Barrington of Transparency International (UK), examine the legislation and its effects in detail.

Public spending strictures and structural reform of the agencies that fight financial crime: not a happy combination, says Natalie Roberts of Lawrence Graham LLP.

John Evans may be contacted on +44 (0) 207 637 9111, globalproducts@logica.com. Reporting by Timon Molloy