MONEYVAL says “very rare” that professionals in Europe who launder are prosecuted

The chairman of Europe’s regional Financial Action Task Force (FATF)-style body MONEYVAL has raised concerns about a lack of free-standing money laundering convictions on the continent, noting that professionals who service criminal groups are going unpunished. In comments released along with the organisation’s 2017 annual report, Daniel Thelesklaf said: “Third party and stand-alone money laundering convictions are still very few and far between.” Instead, prosecutors tended to look for additional ML convictions along with their pursuit of predicate offences. This meant that in Europe’s international financial centres, “trust and corporate service providers are likely to go unpunished despite evidence suggesting that they have wittingly abetted criminals to conceal proceeds of crime through complex and opaque corporate structures”.