Dirty Assets: Experiences, reflections, and lessons learnt from a decade of legislation on criminal money laundering and terrorism financing

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Contemporary, public, images of organised crime are influenced by media and/ or Hollywood representations of 'organised crime' in, eg, The Godfather, The Sopranos, and The Wire. This depiction has created a popular imagery of what 'organised' crime is. Public opinion naturally reflects this picture, reinforced by politicians/ policy discourse that organised crime is a hierarchical structure requiring significant new policing powers to effectively combat it. Organised crime is now a central feature of policy discourse in the crime debate. Similarly, terrorism is depicted as a Tier 1 national security threat, and debates about the threat and counter-measures have been prominent for a decade or more.Yet, policy discourse on organised crime and terrorism is inadequately informed by evidence-led research. This is especially apparent in 'follow the money' approaches to tackling such crime, which are presumed: to operate as a deterrent; to disrupt criminal networks/ markets; to improve detection rates; and to result in increased intelligence flows to policing agencies. Yet, criminological research has proved that this is not necessarily so. Moreover, despite extensive lawmaking in this field (eg the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, the Terrorism Act 2000, the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, and the Terrorist Asset Freezing etc Act 2010), there is little evidence that 'follow the money' approaches are impacting upon organised crime or terrorist activities. There is a need for evaluation of the 'impact' of these pieces of legislation. A decade on from the enactment of the anti-money laundering/ proceeds of crime/ anti-terrorist financing legislation provides an opportune time to step back and evaluate 'follow the money' approaches, and to identify future directions in policy, practice and research.'Following the money' represents an alternative approach to conventional policing stratagems to tackling organised crime and/ or terrorism. This network will bring together policymakers, practitioners, and researchers to explore emerging issues, including: - How do we measure the success of the responsive regime?- What impacts does an anti-assets strategy have on disrupting criminal or terrorism activity and reducing harm to society?- Is it possible to quantify the impact of disrupting organised criminal activity, as compared to more conventional 'ordinary' crime?- What are the main difficulties in institutional or operational forms facing law enforcement agencies when putting into operation an anti-assets strategy?- How does the anti-asset strategy impact on online currencies (eg Bitcoin)?- Are there further institutional or operational tools or opportunities which might improve the anti-assets strategy? - What are the costs of the anti-assets strategy (especially in terms of monetary costs and cost to individual rights)?- What experiences can be learned as between anti-criminal and anti-terrorist sectors and from other jurisdictions? This network will draw upon experiences from other jurisdictions, including the United States, Australia, Canada, Italy, and Bulgaria. International action (eg FATF Recommendations; UN International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism) and actors (eg FATF; MONEYVAL; GRECO) will further inform discussion. The network will engage different academic disciplines (eg law, business, political science, sociology, criminology) as well as key stakeholders from policy and practice.