Money laundering, the diversity of ‘enablers’, and the ongoing struggle for legitimacy

• In Event: The markets of money laundering and of anti-money laundering

Abstract

This paper summarises what these four papers tell us about the range of enabling factors in the laundering and illicit finance process. Much of the legislative and media debate has been over the regulation of the legal profession in Europe and elsewhere (e.g. Australia to the US), expressed by Bullough as Butlers to the World. However as in routine activities models, many things can be viewed as ‘enablers’. The Anti-Money Laundering ‘movement’ can be viewed as an attempt to re-regulate the world’s illicit finance flows and politically, it has had many successes. The discussion raises questions about the perceived legitimacy of this process, how it will handle the likely attacks on multi-lateral institutions from the Trump administration, the fairness of its labelling process for countries, and questions about how much impact it has on crimes of different types and criminal justice outcomes.

Author

• Mike Levi, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University