Tracing the (financial) paths: Analyzing the criminal pathways of financial facilitators

• In Event: WG Organized Crime and Criminal Networks Panel 5: Organized crime: involvement, trajectories and vulnerabilities

Abstract

Financial facilitators are pivotal in laundering the substantial proceeds generated by serious drug offenders through illicit activities. They are able to launder significant sums of illegally obtained money, as they possess specialized expertise needed to circumvent legal and procedural barriers raised by anti-money laundering policies. The services offered may include intricate schemes such as concealing illegal origins through corporate structures, or simpler methods like underground banking transfers.
Thus, as money laundering services offered can be diverse and seriously varying in terms of complexity, this raises questions about the type of offenders who serve as financial facilitators. Existing literature on money laundering primarily focusses on modus operandi and the efficacy of anti-money laundering policies, with limited insight into the background, including criminal careers, of financial facilitators. While studies on criminal careers of financial-economic offenders indicate tendencies towards specialization in financial-economic offences, late onset of criminal activities, and minimal prior offences, they predominantly examine fraudsters, with money laundering seldom being their primary offence.
The study aims to address this gap by employing a life-course perspective to analyze the criminal trajectories of 198 financial facilitators active in the Netherlands between 2016 and 2020. Utilizing data from the Research and Policy Database Criminal Documentation (OBJD) maintained by the Research and Documentation Centre (WODC) of the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security, the study examines each case registered by the Public Prosecution Service involving the targeted facilitators, starting from age 12. Group-based trajectory analysis will be employed to discern patterns in the criminal careers of these facilitators. One of the questions to be answered is, for instance, whether financial facilitators who mainly offer money laundering services to drug offenders are more similar to financial-economic offenders or typical blue-collar offenders in terms of their criminals careers.

Authors

• Jo-Anne Kramer, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam/Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR)

• Arjan Blokland, NSCR

• Edward Kleemans, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

• Melvin Soudijn, National Police of the Netherlands (KLPD)