Exploring the threat of Chinese professional money laundering
Project Live
PROJECT TEAM
Kathryn Westmore
Royal United Services Institute
Kathryn is a Senior Research Fellow at RUSI’s Centre for Finance and Security. She leads the Financial Crime Policy Programme which tracks the global implementation and evolution of anti-financial crime policy. She recently served as Special Advisor to the UK’s Home Affairs Select Committee’s inquiry into fraud in the UK.
Prior to joining RUSI, Kathryn spent 15 years at PwC where she worked across the regulated sector, advising institutions on how best to manage their financial crime risks and meet their regulatory obligations. She also has experience leading large and complex investigations into allegations of fraud, money laundering and corruption, both in the UK and overseas.
She has an MA (Hons) in Classics from the University of Cambridge and a LLM in Banking and Finance Law from the University of London. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) and a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE).
Dr Maria Nizzero
Royal United Services Institute
Dr Maria Nizzero is a Research Fellow at RUSI’s Centre for Finance and Security. Her research examines the UK, EU and global financial crime landscape, asset recovery and sanctions, and the foreign policy dimension of illicit finance. Her other research interests include the serious and organised crime-terror nexus and financial crime involving high-value goods.
Prior to joining RUSI in 2021, Maria worked for a London-based agency specialising in the issue of financial crime and previously for the financial news company, Dow Jones.
Maria holds a PhD in International Public Law and International Relations from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, where she was also an Associate Professor for four years, teaching EU Politics and Institutions. She holds a LLM in Criminology and Criminal Justice Policy from the University of Barcelona, and a MA in International Relations from the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI).
PROJECT SUMMARY
Over the last ten years, awareness has grown of the role of Chinese Professional Money Laundering Organisations (PMLOs) in facilitating transnational crime and the threat that this poses to countries in the West. The emergence of Chinese PLMOs, commonly engaged in Trade-Based Money Laundering (TBML), Informal Value Transfer Systems (IVTS; sometimes referred to as ‘underground banking’), and infiltration of financial institutions, is not just a result of the lucrative global trade in drugs but is closely intertwined with political considerations.
The rise of Chinese PMLOs seems to have gone hand in hand with policy decisions of the Chinese state, notably China’s capital controls which have prevented the free flow of money out of the country. Chinese PMLOs provide ways in which Chinese residents can move money globally, quickly and discreetly. To date, however, there has been little research carried out to understand the links between Chinese PMLOs and the Chinese state, including the extent to which, if at all, the transnational activity of Chinese PMLOs should be considered alongside other state threats.
While there is an increasing body of evidence relating to how Chinese PMLOs operate in the US and Canada, much less is understood about its extent outside North America. This project therefore has two objectives. Firstly, to build an evidence base as to how the threat posed by Chinese PMLOs has evolved by comparing operations of established Chinese PMLOs in the US/Canada with the more nascent operations seen in Europe. Secondly, it seeks to explore the role of Chinese PMLOs in the context of Chinese state activity. In doing so, the research seeks to answer the following questions:
To what extent is there a relationship between the Chinese state and transnational Chinese PMLOs?
To what extent do existing policy responses to money laundering need to change to build resilience to the specific threats of Chinese PMLOs?
PUBLICATIONS
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Publications from this project will be posted here when available