It’s time we inform policy makers on what we already know. The anti-financial crime regime doesn’t work.
For practitioners, the following statistic is well-known: Less than 1% of global illicit financial flows is being seized and frozen. Europe is aiming to take radical action as policy makers now acknowledge that the global and pervasive nature of financial crime is increasingly affecting a wide range of EU sectors while criminals effectively adopt technologies to target our communities in the pursuit of illicit profits with devastating societal effect. Over 40 million people are estimated to be victims of modern-day slavery globally today. That should be a shocking number by itself. However, this is not just about today. Financial crime has an insidious impact on future generations. Criminals don’t pay tax, so $1 billion of missing tax revenues could be invested in school systems and pay for 150,00 toddlers to have a high-quality education in Spain or employ 64,000 teachers in Poland, for example. In other words, these are not just issues that concern EU policy makers who are committed to more effective means to combat financial crime, but they should be adopted as priorities that affect us all.
Prepared by Che Sidanius
Global Head of Financial Crime and Industry Affairs
Thanks for the invaluable input from Phil Cotter, Vivienne Artz, James Mirfin, John Cowling, Ernst Pienaar and Jan Eger
