Roundtable: Questioning Financial Intelligence after the Panama Papers

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract

National financial intelligence units were mainly created in the 1990s to deal with drug traffickers and to track the proceeds from drug trafficking. They are now, however, being presented as key agencies to monitor and regulate ‘financial crime’ in all its diversity. Among the myriad of acronyms used to distinguish various sources and methods of intelligence, FININT is thus promoted to target such disparate acts as attempts to disguise the origin of proceeds of crime, terrorist financing, and actions to conceal the existence or nature of income that can be legally earned but is illegally subtracted from taxable income. In dealing with crimes from terrorism to tax evasion, financial intelligence units and related-practices are formally placed at the heart of a fight against all forms of illicit financial flows. In particular, the qualification of tax crime as a predicate offence for money laundering has been presented as constituting the end of selective tolerance for specific illegalities committed by persons of ‘respectability and high social status’. The roundtable aims to examine this assertion and the current range of FININT practices in light of the Panama Papers revelations.

Sub Unit

• Area XIII: Roundtable Sessions

Chair

• Michael Levi, Cardiff University

Discussants

• Peter Reuter, University of Maryland

• Vanessa A. Iafolla, University of Alberta

• Marie Badrudin, Université de Montréal

• Gilles Favarel-Garrigues, CNRS, Sciences Po-CERI

• Anthony Amicelle, Université de Montréal