The Shepherds of Inequality

Dawn Pretorius

Description

business, law, Dawn Pretorius

The Shepherds of Inequality and the Futility of Our Efforts to Stop Them provides the reader with well-researched information on money-laundering cases that made news in the years from 2017 to 2022. From trafficking people, donkeys, and sand, to ingenious bankers, people in power, and the very rich, a picture emerges of what must be the biggest industry in the world, because ongoing opportunities exist everywhere for anybody.

The world response known as anti-money-laundering legislation is traced to its origin and the measures being taken to combat this scourge. Her findings reveal a bureaucracy of compliance initiatives that cost financial services a lot of money with relatively little success, although well intended. The reasons, the author contends, are that much of the laws relating to tax application, company structures, offshore tax havens, justice systems protecting heads of state, the variety and ease with which money and cryptocurrencies can be moved, and the culture of greed have led to global inequality and undernourished economies.

The world is on the wrong path to minimize money laundering.

Sujets

• Communication organisationnelle
• Business
• Economics
• Marketing et communication
• Business Communication

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 03 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669848448
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Shepherds of InEquality
 
And the Futility of Our Efforts to Stop Them
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dawn Pretorius
 
Copyright © 2022 by Dawn Pretorius.
 
Library of Congress Control Number:
2022917814
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-4846-2

Softcover
978-1-6698-4845-5

eBook
978-1-6698-4844-8
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 09/29/2022
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
841792
 
To all the journalists around the world who risk their lives to give us accurate and real-time reporting, which is one aspect of their job; the other is investigative reporting, which requires systematic and painful original research activity, which contributes
to the downfall of high-powered money launderers
 
To the many specialists who investigate suspected money laundering, such as intelligence agents, law enforcement officers, criminal investigators, and the many other people who take risks and participate in the fight against money laundering
 
To my sons Lyle and Dale for their moral support,
to Vivienne O’Hare, a buddy senior in compliance, with similar sentiments,
for her offer to assist in checking my draft work
 
Thank you.
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 :      Illegal Earnings
The Traffickers
The Profiteers
The Terror Funders
Heads Of State And Their Minions
Chapter 2 :      A Picture of Money Laundering Around the World: The Paint Is Not Yet Dry
Chapter 3 :      Ingenious Bankers
Chapter 4 :      Cryptic Cryptocurrencies
Chapter 5 :      Money, Power, Culture, and Leadership
The Money
The Power
The Culture
The Leadership
Chapter 6 :      Globalization and Inequality
Chapter 7 :      The Birth of the Anti-Money-Laundering Industry (AML)
Chapter 8 :      FATF in Slow Motion
Chapter 9 :      Working Hard at Being Ineffective
Know your customer (KYC)
Sanctions Screening
Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD)
Reporting to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU)
The Wolfsberg Questionnaire
Financial Inclusion And Microlending
Are Financial Institutions the Right Protectors for Money Laundering?
A War Being Lost Despite More Controls
Shell shock
The Cleaning Of Criminals’ Money
Chapter 10 :    The Legalizing of Money Laundering
Corporate Governance Loses to Profits
The Wicked Web Of Company Structures
Tax Tricks And Gymnastics
The Money-laundering Facilitators
The Regulators
Political Survival And Justice Systems
Whistleblowing—Which Is The Right Direction For It To Blow?
Chapter 11 :    The Covert Epicenter of Wealth: Shells and Havens
Chapter 12 :    Greed, the Basis of Money Laundering
Chapter 13 :    What Needs to Change?
PREFACE
O NE OF THE world’s biggest and most vociferous sustainable industries is money laundering. Irrespective of how economies fare, there are always plenty of opportunities to grasp and networks to participate in.
The skill sets required for laundering money are diverse, from highly professional and experienced, technical, academic, and scientific, to rough-and-ready hands-on practitioners. There is a job for everybody. These practitioners are also the shepherds of inequality – a troubling and growing trend around the world.
A counter-industry of painful proportions, both in terms of cost and content, known as anti-money laundering (AML), has been designed to fight back. I write from this industry.
My book looks at these two industries as it relates to power, leadership, greed, and the trillions of dollars that influence national policies, people, culture, and both vulnerable and developed economies around the world and sarcastically suggests that, after years of legal and compliance effort, the anti-money laundering industry is the one that is failing miserably despite the incredible amount of money and skills it takes to thwart, not necessarily the crimes, but just the proceeds of those crimes.
This book is not intended to denigrate the efforts of people involved in terms of investigation, law enforcement, the judiciary, and compliance. Their efforts should be applauded.
But the overall evidence suggests that while efforts are intense, we have created an industry of anti-money laundering, which might just be the biggest con of all.
I have randomly chosen approximately sixty months of news from some fifty equally randomly chosen countries on ways money has been laundered; each story or observation recounted represents a moment in time because something researched today changes tomorrow. Investigations into money laundering can take years. Many never result in satisfactory convictions; many just fall off the radar, or politics will interfere. And yes, there are some spectacular results, but they are few and far between.
The anti-money-laundering industry is similarly inconsistent; there are regulatory changes introduced at different times and differently applied around the world, all of which are dependent on physical and financial resources, skills, and political will.
Both industries are therefore moving targets, and the amount of money involved in both industries is estimated at best.
Money laundering is the world’s biggest industry because it encapsulates trade, commerce, finance, business, manufacturing, production, and politics and pervades the world’s economic efforts in all these areas. To fight it, a costly counter-industry has grown exponentially, but its efforts, relative to the value of money being laundered, are estimated to be less than 1 percent effective in terms of successful convictions and/or money retrieved.
INTRODUCTION
M ONEY LAUNDERING IS a phrase bandied about with words such as crime , fraud , racketeering , organized crime , and illegal markets . To the average person in the street, it is just another example of nefarious activity. The words dark , dangerous , and underground come to mind.
But the term money laundering does not refer to nefarious activity. Money laundering refers to the proceeds of the crime, that is, the money earned from drug dealing, people trafficking, arms trafficking, illicit diamond dealing, and other illegal trading. It is also about the proceeds earned from white-collar (or corporate) crime, which includes insider trading, embezzlement, cybercrime, and identity theft. It is also about wealthy people hiding their money from tax authorities and other prying eyes. It is also about politicians and their minions wanting more power and the money to become even more powerful.
Why is it called money laundering?
When money is earned illegally, whether it be through smuggling goods, trafficking people, or performing illegal corporate transactions, the phrases often used to describe it are “dirty money” or, more formally, “the proceeds of crime.”
The term money laundering is said to have originated with the Italian mafia criminals, such as Al Capone, who deliberately bought laundromats to fudge their illegal profits from prostitution and bootlegged liquor sales with legitimate business sales from the laundromats, thereby obscuring their illegal profits.
In the earlier days, when there were no restrictions on depositing money and, irrespective of where it came from, banks gladly accepted deposits of any kind. Once the money was in the banking system and in an account, any person or company being offered to be paid from a bank account accepted that the check or transfer represented legitimate funds, or frankly, did not care. Cash was also appreciated. No questions were ever asked.
The term money laundering , over time, referred to the illegally earned money having been washed clean when it is deposited in a bank account. That now, of course, is a misnomer. In most countries now, the cash deposited over a certain amount in a bank is automatically reported to a legislative reporting authority. In other words, financial institutions are alerted, through legislative requirements that need to be followed, that they should not be used to legitimize illegally earned money.
Money laundering, therefore, is not about the crime, irrespective of what it is; it is about the proceeds of crime.
It is all about the money.
CHAPTER 1
Illegal Earnings
The Traffickers
G LOBAL ILLICIT TRADE and illicit economies are responsible for transforming systems, changing rules, and altering the power dynamics in our world. We read about it, and we watch movies about it, namely, narcotics, kidnapping for ransom, the trafficking of anything from arms to humans, the trade in stolen and counterfeit goods, bribery, and money laundering, to name just a small cross-section, but are we aware of the extent of it, or quite frankly, do we care because it is a daily occurrence?
Our global economy is one of convergence where legitimate commerce and legitimate transactions perpetuate and feed off the illegal economy and vice versa.
Cities’ markets, be