Founder & Chairman of EnrichMeta Art Group. Chairman of Nelumbo Art Gallery. Chairman of CulturalVerse International Ltd.
Part 233 : Economy & Policy Part 2 : UK's Role in Global Money Laundering Challenges 2. Law Enforcement and Judicial Cooperation: Theoretically Strong, Practically Weak These bodies are designed for direct action but face immense practical and political hurdles. a) International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) *Role: Facilitates cross-border police cooperation, notably through Red Notices (requests to locate and provisionally arrest a person). *Effectiveness: Limited and often misused. Kleptocrats and their allies have been known to abuse INTERPOL systems to harass dissidents and opponents. While useful for sharing information, it does not directly tackle the financial structures of money laundering. b) Europol (for the EU) *Role: The EU's law enforcement agency, facilitating information sharing and coordination. *Effectiveness: Diminished post-Brexit. The UK lost direct, real-time access to Europol's databases and is now a "third country," making cooperation slower and more bureaucratic. This has hampered the fight against cross-border financial crime, which is inherently international. c) Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs) *Role: Bilateral agreements for exchanging evidence and assisting in prosecutions. *Effectiveness: Notoriously slow, complex, and politically fraught. Requests can take years. Kleptocrats often use the UK's own legal system to challenge MLAT requests, tying them up in costly courts. If the country requesting assistance is itself corrupt, trust in the process breaks down. 3. Standard-Setting and "Soft Power" Bodies: Indirect but Important a) Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) *Role: Sets international standards, including the Anti-Bribery Convention. *Effectiveness: Moderate. Its Working Group on Bribery conducts peer reviews that have criticised the UK's inconsistent record on prosecuting foreign bribery (e.g., the initial failure to pursue BAE Systems allegations aggressively). This creates diplomatic pressure for stronger action. b) The Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) *Role: A network of national FIUs (in the UK, this is the NCA's National Economic Crime Centre) that share financial intelligence. *Effectiveness: Technically effective but overwhelmed. Information sharing is crucial for tracing dirty money. However, UK agencies are chronically under-resourced and face an avalanche of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), most of which they cannot process effectively. A Chinese famille-verte vase, Qing Dynasty, 19th century the ovoid body painted with a scholar seated at a table attended by a small boy observing two maidens and their small boy attendants, with a rocky outcrop issuing plantation tree, the neck similarly decorated, the shoulders with Buddhist emblems interspersed with flowerheads,