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Is Money Laundering Leading to More Crimes? Essay Example

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Words: 2104

Introduction

Money laundering has long been the source of economic problems among both developing and established markets around the globe. The process of disguising the ownership of money leads to more federal crimes such as illegal wire transfers, mobile based illegal transactions, bulk cash smuggling across state lines, and round-tripping (Stack, 2015). The federal government has been losing the battle in fighting money laundering because of the general banking system’s lax internal controls, new e-commerce transactions and e-banking challenges as well as the lack of public and private innovative preventive programs that aim to detect and monitor potential money laundering activities.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is find current literature concerning what federal laws, bank regulations and e-commerce laws which might be able to create a more preventive strategy to detect and control the emergent use of money laundering to fund crimes and empower law-defying acts. This research hopes to find out about the most constructive procedures by which money laundering has been fought against through the use of particular strategies and how these strategies could be applied in other countries particularly in areas where internet-based monetary transactions are rampant.

Literature Review

Book 1:

Ioannides, E. (2014).Fundamental principles of EU law against money laundering .Farnham:

England: Ashgate Publishing Ltd

This material basically discusses international legal legislations aimed at helping international countries to prosecute the money laundering cases in different jurisdictions and countries. The author examines different governmental policies that can help identify and track money laundering using the legal bounds of international prosecutions.

Book 2:

Unger, B., & Van der Linde, D. (Eds.). (2013).Research Handbook on Money Laundering. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Unger & Van der Linde’s book (2013) that describes the latest trends of money laundering as a movement from Al Capone to Al Qaeda. One of the main challenges that the authors identify is that money laundering has no direct effects, and it is a victimless crime. As such, it is harder to investigate and tackle. This research material from Unger (et al, 2013) entitled Research Handbook on Money Laundering gives a constructive presentation on the real meaning and the real effects of money laundering in worldwide business industries.

Book 3:

Hopton, D. (2009). Money laundering: a concise guide for all business. Gower Publishing, Ltd.Farnharm, United Kingdom

Hopton (2009) investigates the business impact of money laundering and regulations. The guidebook provides useful information for businesses on how to protect their interest and learn to identify money from illegal proceeds. As the author confirms: “Money laundering is therefore as much about disguising the ownership of property as it is about converting or washing criminal property” (Hopton, 2009. p. 2).

Book 4:

Stessens, G. (2000). Money laundering: a new international law enforcement model (Vol. 15). Cambridge University Press.

Stessens’ (2000) book entitled Money laundering: a new international law enforcement model, provides essential guidelines and comprehensive timelines. The author reviews the development of anti-money-laundering policies around the world, and their impact on organized crime, as well as terrorism. The ideals presented in this reading is supported by two newspaper resources that provide a more distinct indication on how actual cases are handled in courts and how money laundering is viewed in the field of international commerce.

Newspaper 1:

Parker, G. (2015) Ministers seek to cut red tape in UK anti-money laundering regime. Financial Times. August 28, 2015

Parker’s (2015) article entitled Ministers seek to cut red tape in UK anti-money laundering regime, discusses the recent developments in anti-money laundering policies and regulations highlight some of the successful methods used by policymakers to identify, follow, and investigate the source of illegal transactions, often going through several countries and bank systems.

Newspaper 2:

O’Keeffe, K. (2015, September 9). Caesars fined $9.5 million over lax money-laundering controls. Wall Street Journal (Online). p. 1.

The newspaper article by O’Keeffe (2015) entitled Caesars fined $9.5 million over lax money-laundering controls, found that a 9.5 million dollar fine to HSBC bank for utilizing very lax internal monitoring controls is example of some methods that can prevent money laundering. The author emphasized that the use of the Money Laundering Act can act as a prevention measure to hold banks and casinos accountable for not detecting suspicious money laundering transactions.

Journal articles 1:

Moustafa, T, H., El-Megied-E., Sobh, T.S. & Shafea, K.M. (2015). Anti-money laundering using

a two-phase system. Journal of Money Laundering Control, 18(3), 304-329. doi: 10.1108/JMLC-05-2014-0015

The journal article by Moustafa (el al, 2015) is also proposed to be used as it found that the banking and financial industry needs to apply a two-tier prevention program that will improve the probability of finding money laundering electronic trends. The author indicated that the external laws and policies have been used for prevention of money laundering.

Journal article 2:

Gallant, M. M. (2013). Money laundering: An endless cycle? A comparative analysis of anti-money laundering policies in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. Journal of Banking Regulation, 14(2), 183-184. doi:10.1057/jbr.2012.21

In this writing Gallant presents the theories that globally money laundering information should be shared in order to prevent the continued cycle of undetected or poorly monitored processes that are supposed to detect and prevent money laundering

Journal articles 3:

Levi, M., & Reuter, P. (2006). Money laundering. Crime and Justice, 34(1), 289-375.

Levi & Reuter’s (2006) review of criminal activities related to money laundering approaches the problem from the law enforcement perspective. In this presentation, the authors tried to outline what specific resolutions have already been made and what specific rules actually worked in controlling the rampant existence of money laundering.

Journal articles 4:

Daniali, Ghorban. 2014. “E-money Laundering Prevention.” New Marketing Research Journal 29-38. Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost

Author Ghorban (2014) found that the governments and bank agencies [including] all associated transaction agents need the assistance of an e-commerce and e-banking specialist who is trained in uncovering money laundering electronic transactions. The author shares the use of a more technical team will allow the agencies to be on the same level of advance technology utilize by the money laundering criminal.

Journal Article 5:

Levi, M. and William Gilmore (2002). “Terrorist Finance, Money Laundering and the Rise of Mutual Evaluation: A New Paradigm for Crime Control?”. European Journal of Law Reform 4 (2): 337–364.

This presentation provides a valid source of statistical report on how money laundering has been used to fund terrorist operations around the globe. This gives a clear view on what is really happening in the market today.

Journal Article 6:

Levi, M. (May 2010). “Combating the Financing of Terrorism: A History and Assessment of the Control of ‘Threat Finance'”. British Journal of Criminology 50 (4): 650–669.

This material provides a distinct presentation of what specific solutions have been done then and now to combat the existence of money laundering activities both in local and international scale operations.

Methodology

In this research study, I will utilize personal interviews and surveys to gather pertinent information and data. The research question that shall guide this study would be, “Is Money Laundering Leading to More Crime?”. The research survey is designed to provide qualitative descriptions about the opinions shared by the money laundering consultants. Through measuring the responses of the participants in the survey, it is expected that measuring how money laundering is controlled in both online and offline transactions shall be better defined based on actual cases handled by experts and individuals involved in monetary transactions.

The goal is to gather the consultants’ responses which will be translated into qualitative results through the use of psychological analysis that would intend to measure participants’ response with that of the actual situations involved and presented in the literary materials observed. The qualitative process is adapted in this research in order to analyse participants’ perceptions concerning money laundering. Questions in the survey would include queries with regards federal laws, bank regulations and e-commerce laws that are supposed to assist in preventing money laundering activities.

Data Collection

The goal of the qualitative survey to be performed is to receive 100% participation because the questions are general enough to gather the results in order to make some assumptions based on the responses. The post survey review will be completed after all the surveys have been accomplished. This will establish a relationship with the consultants for future data collection follow-up survey questions.

This approach shall create a cross referenced indication on how people engaging in money laundering activities does create higher possibilities where crimes become the end result of such engagements. Tying up the results of this methodology with that of the literature reviewed for this research, a connection between money laundering and the existence of crimes shall be drawn within a specific line of indication that involves all the factors included [to have actually affected the connection between these two factors] hence making a mark on how matters ought to be controlled further.

Research Participants

The research participants shall include a small group of 25 people that work at the Walsh Agency in Ellicott Maryland. I will interview the Director of Consultants Kathleen Walsh manager to determine the best type of questions to ask her consultants in a group session. The remaining 24 consultant’s basic requirements include a bachelor’s degree in business, finance or economics. Kathleen has joined her father and founder John Walsh in leading the industry in money laundering preventive strategies. Kathleen’s credentials spans out for over 30 years of hands-on training with money laundering in relation to various businesses and she specializes in advising corporations on how to ensure that their transactions are legal and within the confines of federal law. Her presence as one of the primary respondents to the interview shall provide a strong source of competence for this research.

Conclusion

Within the context of this research, it is expected that a full consideration on the definition of what money laundering is about shall be better given attention to. This will make it easier for readers to understand what the matter is about and how they are supposed to be involved in relation to its existence in the international economic cash flow. Economic strategies towards creating a more respective and well-projected options of determining money laundering activities are expected to be presented within the study as well; with full competent basis on the results gathered from the methodology used in the research.

The timeliness of the data to be used for thus study is hoped to affect the overall process of creating a more constructive perspective on what money laundering is and how it could be prevented especially in the eyes of those who have the authority to control it. Overall, this study entails to create a constructive procedure in involving the authorities and the society as well in making a relative mark on how money laundering could be controlled [or if possible] stopped completely to reduce the rate of crimes related to it.

References

Beare, M. E. (2003). Critical reflections on transnational organized crime, money laundering and corruption. University of Toronto Press.

Chatain, P. L., McDowell, J., Mousset, C., Schott, P. A., & Van der Does, E. (2009). Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing. Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing, 1(1), 1-271.

Daniali, Ghorban. 2014. “E-money Laundering Prevention.” New Marketing Research Journal 29-38. Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed October 19, 2015).Research

Hopton, D. (2009). Money laundering: a concise guide for all business. Gower Publishing, Ltd.Farnharm, United Kingdom

Huang, J. Y. (2015). Effectiveness of US anti-money laundering regulations and HSBC case study. Journal of Money Laundering Control, 18(4), 525-532. doi: 10.1108/JMLC-05-2015-0018

Moustafa, T. H., Abd El-Megied, M. Z., Sobh, T. S., & Shafea, K. M. (2015). Anti-money laundering using a two-phase system. Journal of Money Laundering Control, 18(3), 304-329. doi: 10.1108/JMLC-05-2014-0015

Ioannides, E. (2014).Fundamental principles of EU law against money laundering .Farnham: England: Ashgate Publishing Ltd

Internal Revenue Services (IRS). (2015). Federal Statues-Money laundering. Retrieved from https://www.irs.gov/uac/Federal-Statutes—Money-Laundering