Business Administration / Διοίκηση Επιχειρήσεων (Μ.Β.Α)

Purpose – This paper evaluates current anti-money laundering policies to identify their shortcomings—reviews the money laundering scale around the world and the success rate of the AML policies. The objective is to see the policy’s effectiveness and determine whether money laundering can be reduced or stopped with the current policies. Design and Methodology – A triangulation method is used to investigate and address the research question. The paper uses several secondary data collection and evaluation sources. For example, FinCEN leaked files, UNODC reports, research by other authors on similar topics, EUROPOL, European Commission, and FATF reports. Based on the shortcomings of secondary data, a questionnaire was developed to collect primary data using quantitative and qualitative methods. Findings – The main findings from the analysis are that the current anti-money laundering policy has less than a 0.1 percent success rate. It failed to reduce the serious crime levels. Also, under the existing anti-money laundering policy, professional organizations like banks, auditors, and law firms are responsible for fighting money laundering while being biased and having a conflict of interest. The cost of the policy on legitimate businesses is very high. Research Limitations and implications – It is practically impossible to find the actual volumes of money laundering or illicit money generation. No precise success measure is available to determine the AML policy success. The research covers an only handful of countries. Since the information required is highly sensitive, collecting all the required information from private companies is hard. Current AML policy intervention costs the legitimate business, and the population is a hundred times more than the amounts confiscated from the criminals. Big banks are practically untouchable, and they can violate any rules and regulations with almost no punishment.