Money Laundering Blacklists

Michele Riccardi is Deputy Director at Transcrime and Adjunct Professor at Università Cattolica and University of Palermo (Itlay). He has coordinated numerous research projects and publications in the field of money laundering, organised crime, and financial crime. In this domain, he has been consultant for the United Nations, the European Commission, World Bank, and the Italian government.

List of figures

List of tables

Acknowledgments

List of abbreviations

Introduction

PART I: Money laundering risk measures






Money laundering risk and determinants





Money laundering (and illicit financial flows)



Money laundering risk



Determinants of money laundering risk across countries: proximity, opacity, and security



Available measures of money laundering risk




Money laundering blacklists and grey lists





Origin and scope of anti-money laundering blacklists



The FATF blacklist and grey list



The US INCSR list



The European Union anti-money laundering blacklist



Blacklists and sanctions




Other lists of high-risk countries





Lists based on judicial investigations



Lists based on media investigations: from Panama Papers to FinCEN files



Lists based on financial/corporate data analyses



Lists based on crime data analyses



Composite indicators



Lists developed by banks and other obliged entities



Relations and underlying components of existing risk ratings



Summary: the gaps in existing risk ratings and blacklists

PART II: A New measurement approach




A new approach to identify countries at high-risk of money laundering





Rationale



Methodology and operationalisation



A practical application: money laundering risk from the perspective of Italy




Discussion and policy implications





Discussion



Policy implications



Limitations and future research directions



Appendix

References

Index