Organized Crime In The New Millennium

globally laundered every year. The FATF therefore does not publish any figures in this
regard." Academic commentators have likewise been unable to estimate the volume of
money with any degree of assurance. Various estimates of the scale of global money
laundering are sometimes repeated often enough to make some people regard them as
factual—but no researcher has overcome the inherent difficulty of measuring an actively
concealed practice.
Regardless of the difficulty in measurement, the amount of money laundered each year
is in the billions of US dollars and poses a significant policy concern for governments.
As a result, governments and international bodies have undertaken efforts to deter,
prevent, and apprehend money launderers. Financial institutions have likewise
undertaken efforts to prevent and detect transactions involving dirty money, both as a
result of government requirements and to avoid the reputational risk involved. Issues
relating to money laundering have existed as long as there have been large scale
criminal enterprises. Modern anti-money laundering laws have developed along with the
modern War on Drugs. In more recent times anti-money laundering legislation is seen
as adjunct to the financial crime of terrorist financing in that both crimes usually involve
the transmission of funds through the financial system (although money laundering
relates to where the money has come from, and terrorist financing relating to where the
money is going to).
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