Money Laundering Bulletin

Money laundering is all about fake respectability, transforming the seedy and ill-gotten into the legitimate and well-earned; so in Africa, where better to launder criminal money than through the continent’s most developed economy, South Africa. Richard Hurst reports from Johannesburg.

Located on the western seaboard of Europe, Portugal presents a welcoming coastline not just to tourists and golfers but also to smugglers and drug traffickers. It has responded by implementing some of the most sophisticated and wide-ranging money laundering legislation anywhere. Indeed its scope already covers many of the entities identified in the Second UK Directive as Sue Grossey reports.

As money laundering detection systems become more sophisticated, we can expect the criminals to diversify their methods in an attempt to avoid them. Traditionally investors in private equity have seemed unlikely money launderers. Investment tends to be made by well-established players for the longer term with limited early access to their investment, but, warns Isabelle David of Apax Partners Ltd, this could change as the criminal seeks alternative markets.

‘Putting the crooks out of business’ was the theme of the twentieth Cambridge international symposium on economic crime hosted by Jesus College, University of Cambridge (www.crimesymposium.org). The week-long event attracted the customary international array of luminaries and experts who offered broad insight into conduct of the financial war on organised crime and terrorism. Timon Molloy reports their current strategic and practical thinking.

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Timon Molloy, Editor