Financial Transparency Coalition

Behind only fear and tragedy, Osama bin Laden’s most enduring legacy on our world will be the changes in national and international security. Our response to his hate—and the attacks he orchestrated on September 11th—was overwhelming shaped by our collective realization that many of our security systems cannot protect against those who want so badly to do us harm. The most conspicuous of these systematic changes was—of course—in air transportation, as anyone who has flown before and after 2001 can tell you. The United States' capacity to respond to terrorist attacks was also improved with the...

PARIS — As governments around the world freeze the assets of former dictators, campaigners and governments from the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development (Task Force) meet in Paris this Saturday to discuss how to tackle dirty money flows. This is ahead of a high-level meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which sets the international anti-money laundering standards.

Cocaine is the drug of choice in several European countries, but most notably, Spain, which has the highest per capita consumption of cocaine in the continent. It is so prevalent, in fact, that researchers have found the drug in an analysis of the air in Madrid and Barcelona (concentrations are even higher on weekends). And if you examine a random bank note in Spain, there is a 94% chance you’ll find traces of cocaine on it. This problem hasn’t been getting much better for Spain or for the rest of Europe, for that matter. In fact, in November of...

In all public safety efforts, officials must keep one step ahead of their criminal counterparts. The U.S. Military and Intelligence are constantly developing new strategies and weapons to respond to the ever-changing tactics of terrorists. Police forces worldwide persistently apply new technologies to solve crimes and catch criminals. It is the same for financial crimes and anti-money laundering (AML), in particular. In the past few years the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental organization founded to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, has made progress in several countries worldwide. In the Philippines, for example, the country’s Congress...