Money laundering through consulting companies

Fabian Maximilian Teichmann and Marie-Christin Falker

Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, 2020, vol. 28, issue 3, 485-500

Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how illegally obtained funds are laundered by employment of consulting companies in Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. Design/methodology/approach - A qualitative content analysis of 28 semi-standardized expert interviews with both criminals and prevention experts, and a quantitative survey of 200 compliance officers led to the identification of concrete money-laundering techniques involving the employment of consulting companies. Findings - Consulting companies continue to be used for money laundering in European German-speaking countries, especially in the layering and integration stages of the money laundering process, during which the origins of funds are concealed, and the money is integrated into the legal economy. Research limitations/implications - Qualitative findings from the analysis of semi-standardized interviews are limited to the 28 interviewees’ perspectives. Practical implications - Identification of gaps in existing anti-money-laundering mechanisms provides compliance officers, law enforcement agencies and legislators with valuable insights into how criminals operate. Originality/value - The existing literature focuses on organizations that combat money laundering and the improvement of anti-money-laundering measures. This paper outlines how money launderers avoid detection. Both preventative and criminal perspectives are considered.

Keywords: Compliance; White collar crime; Money laundering; Consulting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:jfrcpp:jfrc-07-2019-0091

DOI: 10.1108/JFRC-07-2019-0091

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance is currently edited by Prof John Ashton

More articles in Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().