Slow passage in the Mekong Delta

Vietnam is a cash society with much still to learn about money laundering after a pump-prime start by the United Nations and World Bank as Shanelle Lamare and Keith Nuthall report.

For the last five years the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in partnership with the World Bank (WB), has operated the Global Programme against Money Laundering (GPML) to boost Vietnam’s AML/CFT (anti-money laundering and combating financing of terrorism) systems. The project - which was launched in 1997 - made its way into the Mekong region of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam in 2005. GPML efforts have also focused on Central Asia, Africa, Central America, and the Pacific Islands since the programme’s inception. Each of the locations where GPML works may face similar money laundering issues but the nations all vary in their levels of AML development and, as a result, their vulnerability.