Fighting terror with error: the counter-productive regulation of informal value transfers

• NCJ Number: 306015
• Journal: Crime Law and Social Change Volume: 45 Dated: 2006 Pages: 315-336
• Date Published: 2006
• Author(s): Nikos Passas
• Length: 22 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2003-DT-CX-0001
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)

Annotation

This paper challenges the widely shared view that the United States and international frameworks regulating terrorist finance and money laundering (AML/CFT) is productive and effective.

Abstract

Through a careful look at the evidence regarding the formal and informal fund transfer systems, this paper shows that security, crime control, and economic policy objectives are systematically frustrated by ill-conceived and misapplied rules. U.S. federal and state regulations in particular illustrate how unrealistic, unaffordable, and counter-productive are current arrangements. The paper concludes with some suggestions about how to reverse the ongoing fact-free policymaking process. (Published abstract provided)