The (Mis)Use of Corporate Vehicles by Transnational Organised Crime Groups in the Concealment, Conversion and Control of Illicit Finance

跨国有组织犯罪集团和干预非法资金的困难已被英国政府确定为高度优先关注的问题（见严重和有组织犯罪战略（SOCS）（2013）），并在其他主权国家和欧盟和联合国等政府间机构的议程上保持高度优先地位（例如见SOCTA（2013））。跨国有组织犯罪集团的一个核心问题是，为了掩盖其非法资金，可能需要与会计师、律师和其他专业人员等外部合法行为者进行某种形式的勾结和（或）合作。促成这一点的一个机制是建立和滥用合法的商业结构，如“公司工具”-欧盟的严重和有组织犯罪威胁评估（2013：14）突出了“有组织犯罪集团如何利用各种法律的商业结构和专业专家来维持合法性的假象，掩盖犯罪活动和利润，并实施有利可图的复杂犯罪”。合法公司实体通过为“受益所有人”提供合法的外表，为隐藏、转换和控制非法资金和犯罪行为收益提供了机会。（即实际拥有它们的真实的人）和/或使用它们转移资金的客户-在后一种情况下，第三方合法行为者成为知情者或不知情者（或故意失明），协助有组织犯罪活动。然而，在了解有组织犯罪集团如何滥用这些合法公司实体以及谁在帮助他们方面的动态方面仍然存在重大研究空白，该项目旨在解决这一问题。该项目是曼彻斯特大学学者之间的一项新的令人兴奋的跨学科合作，爱丁堡大学和鹿特丹伊拉斯谟大学在非学术合作伙伴苏格兰警察局和Ciroc的支持下，荷兰有组织犯罪监测。我们已经组建了一个研究团队，拥有犯罪学和法律方面的专业知识和研究技能，以调查跨国有组织犯罪集团滥用“公司工具”来管理和控制英国和荷兰以及欧盟更广泛的犯罪收益。这是英国首次进行此类研究。我们的目标是开发原始的经验和理论研究，并利用二手数据源，以解决以下三个研究问题：工作包1：如何，为什么以及在何种条件下跨国OCG使用公司车辆隐瞒，转换和控制非法资金跨司法管辖区？- 方法：（1）对现有的学术、实践和政策文献进行为期三个月的快速证据评估，以全面了解“最新技术”的深度和质量，了解有组织犯罪集团在非法融资背景下使用公司工具所产生的问题和影响。(2)对联合王国和荷兰执法调查案件档案进行文件/定性分析，与执法人员和其他知情专家进行半结构化访谈和重点小组。工作包2：在OCG使用公司工具时，公司工具的形式是否有任何模式、趋势和缺陷，以及在不同司法管辖区之间的比较如何？- 方法：（1）对欧盟范围内的国际、政府间和国内数据集以及以前的研究数据进行二级数据分析。工作包3：在哪些法律的、政策和执法条件下，OCG滥用公司工具，是否存在（a）欧盟各管辖区之间的对称性，为滥用创造了有利的环境？- 方法：（1）对英国和荷兰组成司法管辖区以及欧盟总体框架内有关公司工具和相关结构的存在和透明度的法律和政策进行理论分析。

Transnational organised crime groups and the difficulties in intervening with illicit finances have been identified as a high-priority concern by the UK government (see Serious and Organised Crime Strategy (SOCS) (2013)) and remain high on the agenda of other sovereign states and intergovernmental bodies such as the EU and UN (see for instance SOCTA (2013)). A central issue for transnational organised crime groups is that in order to conceal their illicit finance, some form of collusion and/or cooperation with external, legitimate actors such as accountants, lawyers and other professionals may be required. One mechanism for facilitating this is the creation and misuse of legitimate business structures, such as 'corporate vehicles' - the EU's Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (2013: 14) foregrounds how 'organised crime groups exploit various legal business structures and professional experts to maintain a façade of legitimacy, obscure criminal activities and profits, and to perpetrate lucrative and complex crimes'. Licit corporate entities provide opportunities to conceal, convert and control illicit finance and the proceeds of criminal behaviours by offering an external appearance of legitimacy to the 'beneficial owners' (i.e. the real people who actually own them) of these entities and/or the clients who use them to transfer funds - in this latter case, third-party legitimate actors become witting, or unwitting (or wilfully blind), facilitators of organised crime activities. However, there remains a major research gap in understanding the dynamics around how organised crime groups misuse such licit corporate entities and who assists them and this project aims to address this.The project is a new and exciting interdisciplinary collaboration between academics from the University of Manchester, the University of Edinburgh and the Erasmus University Rotterdam with support from non-academic partners Police Scotland and Ciroc/the Netherlands Organised Crime Monitor. We have assembled a research team with expertise and research skills in Criminology and Law to investigate the misuse of 'corporate vehicles' by transnational organised crime groups for the management and control of the proceeds of crime in the UK and the Netherlands, and the EU more widely. This is the first such study in the UK. We aim to develop original empirical and doctrinal research, and utilise secondary data sources, to address the following three research questions:Work Package 1: How, why and under which conditions do transnational OCGs use corporate vehicles to conceal, convert and control illicit finances cross-jurisdictionally? - Method: (1) A three-month Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) of existing academic, practice and policy literature to develop an overview of the depth and quality of the 'state of the art' in understanding of problems and impacts associated with the use of corporate vehicles by organised crime groups in the context of illicit finance. (2) Document/qualitative analysis of UK and Dutch enforcement investigation case files, semi-structured interviews and focus groups with law enforcement actors and other informed experts. Work Package 2: Are there any patterns, trends and regularities in the forms that corporate vehicles take when used by OCGs and how does this compare across jurisdictions? - Method: (1) Secondary data analysis of EU-wide international, intergovernmental, and domestic datasets and of previous research data.Work Package 3: Under which legal, policy and enforcement conditions are corporate vehicles misused by OCGs and are there (a)symmetries across EU jurisdictions that create conducive circumstances for their misuse? - Method: (1) Doctrinal analysis of the laws and policies governing the existence and transparency of corporate vehicles and associated constructs across the constituent jurisdictions of the UK and the Netherlands as well as the overarching EU framework.