Transnational organised corporate crime, fear of money laundering and one-sidedness

[P.C. van Duyne]

Almost a quarter of a century we are ‘bombarded’ with reports about threats of serious (transnational organised) crime (for profit) and in particular the related criminal revenues. Drug barons are supposed to corrupt and disrupt the financial system by their trillions of dirty money. To stem this tide of criminal infiltration the US administration has persuaded first in 1989 the G-7 countries to establish a costly anti-laundering regime monitored but actually headed by the FATF. This was soon converted into a global system, actually mainly targeting ‘usual suspects’. Its effectiveness is still highly debatable, however.

     But what about the profitable criminal activities by no so ‘usual suspects’: corporate bodies? What harm do they do and how thoroughly do they disrupt society and the financial system? How many criminal profits do they make? And also, what does the FATF say about that? Examples of corporate wrong-doing abound, and not only connected to the credit crisis. But are these qualified as money laundering and incorporated into threat assessments as published by Europol and the United Nations? And if not, one may wonder why. Two recent but very different examples make this question acute. The first concerns the so-called Libor/Euribor scandal and the second the GlaxoSmithKline scandal.

     The Libor scandal is of interest because of the manipulation of the interbank interests for which the UK Barclays Bank was fined in the US (€ 363 million): there was plain mutual deception to keep the own interest rates low, but with a global impact on the height of mortgages and interests for ordinary citizens, among other things. How should the acquired illegal advantages from this deception be qualified? Criminal money? And if so, why do we not hear of any threat warning from the FATF, whose estimated 1,5 trillion crime monies ($ or €) sink into insignificance compared to this organised bankers’ deceit?

     This is only about money. GlaxoSmithKline tampered with millions of young peoples’ health and life by agressively bringing an medicine on the market, which was ineffective, except for dangerous side effects, such as depression and suicide. GSK lied about test results and corrupted doctors to prescribe the drug.

     These facts are well known and I do not need to elaborate that. What needs to be debated is the projection of these globally organised criminal corporate offences onto the play ground of the FATF and UNODC. And of course the parallel question: if this is transnational organised crime, why do these august organisations remain silent about these varieties of transnational organised corporate crime?

     I drop a hint: see our chapter of the Handbook of Transnational Organised Crime, published by Routledge (alas against a usurious price).  The history of Transnational Organised Crime makes clear that this is one of the consequences of the US imposed one-sided regime against criminal (drug) profits in which there is no place for non-unusual higher-placed (corporate) suspects.

(Interested readers can apply for a free copy of our chapter: write to [e-mail])

 

Petrus C. van Duyne

 

See also: www.Petrusvanduyne.nl