Overseas financial investigation of organised crime

Rick Brown and Samantha Gillespie

Journal of Money Laundering Control, 2015, vol. 18, issue 3, 371-381

Abstract: Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to explore the problems that arise when undertaking a financial investigation that involves tracing assets in foreign jurisdictions. Design/methodology/approach - – The paper is based on a secondary analysis of data collected as part of a qualitative study of the role of financial investigation in tackling organised crime. This was based on interviews with investigating officers, financial investigators and Crown Prosecution Service representatives associated with 60 cases. Of the 60 cases, 36 were found to have an international dimension. Findings - – The study found a number of problems with undertaking overseas financial investigations. These included problems with the letter of request process, difficulties tracking assets in some countries and problems with tracing funds transferred through money service bureaux. Informal contact on a police-to-police basis was generally considered an effective means of improving the quality of information received. Research limitations/implications - – This study is based on just 60 cases of organised crime in which financial investigation was used. The extent to which these findings can be generalised to other cases is unclear. Practical implications - – The study highlights the most common obstacles to overseas financial investigation that should be addressed. In addition, the importance of informal contact with overseas police jurisdictions may highlight a means of improving requests for assistance. Originality/value - – This paper provides an important insight into the views of operational staff undertaking overseas financial investigations and as such highlights the particular difficulties in this work.

Keywords: Organised crime; Financial investigation; Law enforcement; Letters of request; Money service bureaux; Mutual legal assistance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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:jmlcpp:jmlc-03-2014-0010

DOI: 10.1108/JMLC-03-2014-0010

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Money Laundering Control is currently edited by Dr Li Hong Xing and Prof Barry Rider

More articles in Journal of Money Laundering Control from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().