Author: Cesare Montagna
Anti Money Laundering Senior Learning Advisor Compliance Specialist
Subcommittee: Audit Institutions
The phenomenon of money laundering is ideally divisible in two disJnct moments: the presupposed offence that allows the generaJon of a gain of criminal matrix and subsequently the reuse of that gain, in that necessary aQempt to reintegrate money into the legal socio-economic system, so as to “clean up” as they say slanderously.
This essenJally implies a subdivision of the phenomenon into two disJnct moments, which can be placed in a spaJal system, and actually also a temporal one, completely disJnct from each other, meaning therefore, that an offence commiQed within any EU Member State, or more generally even on a global scale, may subsequently be the subject of an aQempt to re-enter the legal economy of another Member State, in an effort to conceal the criminal origin of the proceeds by means of the mobility of such capital.
In addiJon, the techniques used in the laundering are oVen connoted on an ontological level for heterogeneity, adaptability, and for a certain perverse refinement, therefore in an prevenJon and contrast system it is vital to build an apparatus of coordinaJon on an internaJonal level that could intercept this transnaJonality on which recycling itself is based, and it is also on the basis of a need of this kind that EPPO is born, whose community dimension is primarily a need, even before a benefit. On the sidelines of this, it is good to emphasise that this coordinated system of contrast is necessary that it is orientated from a point of view of updaJng the normaJve dictates, but also that it can count on acJve survey int the episteme of the various phenomena, catalysing their efforts on indicators of internaJonal scope that make them “liquid” in its genesis, hence the need for a doctrinal dimension and study, even before operaJonal for EPPO.
Therefore it is necessary in any paradigm of prevenJon of criminal phenomena, to draw adequately on a data and staJsJcs, whose contribuJon can certainly not be considered completely exhausJve but allows the construcJon of indicators with a wide scope, to which to rely more on a conceptual and idiomaJc level, with an idealisJc dimension of Weberian matrix, or as a coordinate of value in a system of significance to be shared on a supranaJonal level, with the same breath therefore that cones the very criminal phenomena to which it turns its aQenJon, to overcome that vulnus that characterises the coordinaJon of individual naJonal systems.
A dimension that therefore combines prevenJon and repression on an internaJonal spaJality and which already stands at a Jme when the Community iniJaJves that tend in this direcJon are mulJplying, think for example of the important disclosure that is about to be born in Europe, namely the Beneficial Ownership Registers InterconnecJon System (aka BORIS), which has the task of raJonalising and coordinaJng with a Community-wide archive the names of the beneficial owners, or the last beneficiaries of services and operaJons of an economic / financial nature and not only, since it is parJcularly effecJve in a strategy to combat the phenomena of money laundering, to be able to bring directly to one or more natural persons the sphere of real interest in reference to the capital used and transiJng in the territory of the European Union, so as to weigh its angularly strategic aspects, such as origin or ulJmate purpose.
In line with the ideal approach defined in the premise, in the further need to draw objecJve risk factors that can be shared on a general level and that lead to the limits of an esoteric doctrine of common sharing, it is necessary to idenJfy components that can serve as a basis and source fo those who work in the contrast system and acJvely collaborate within it.
In a context of this kind, it is parJcularly relevant to build a shared reference horizon that can arise from the effort of analyzing and collecJng legal, economic and social data, through which to build the common ground on which to build an effecJve law enforcement acJon.