Money Laundering A comparative study between the efforts of the legislation of the United States of America and the United Kingdom in terms of Anti-Money Laundering

Abstract

To enhance international efforts in combating money laundering, several bodies were established, the most important of which is the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which sets international standards for compliance with policies and regulations. As well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which monitors the compliance of participating countries. The IMF's cooperation with the UK resulted in reforms of legislation with the praise of FATF. However, there is no doubt that money laundering results in dire economic and social consequences represented in destabilising national security and depriving individuals of their freedom and safety. As a result of these consequences, the world's efforts in this regard increased, especially the efforts of the UK and the US, which are ranked among the world's largest economies. However, the real problem is that despite the efforts of these countries through law enforcement agencies and the enactment of legislation, the loopholes in the legislations have reduced the efficiency of these regulations. Comparatively, the research concluded that the UK's efforts are in remarkable progress compared to the US, through UK's compliance with the international standards such as Know Your Customer (KYC) and reporting suspicious operations, more strongly than the US. This contributes to reducing the presence of fictitious companies and unknown personalities, unlike the US where money launderers are armed with a wall of fictitious companies as result of not registering the true identity of the owner of the money. Therefore, to produce a strong increase in the efficiency of UK's efforts, the research suggested some measures that enhance the speed of detection of suspicious operations which leads to the protection of the financial legislation internationally and locally.