The Anti Money Laundering Complex and the Compliance Industry

Financial institutions, as gateways to the financial system, to economic power and possibilities, are one of the major vehicles for money laundering and therefore also represent an important means to prevent this type of crime. The compliance officer symbolises a part of this private investment in anti money laundering (AML) and as a bank employee is responsible for the implementation of governmental objectives, trapped between crime fighting objectives and commercial goals. The duality of the involvement of private partners in the AML complex and the vastness of the system serves as a background for a new book looking at the functioning, values and perceptions of actors within this system.

With thorough analysis of original empirical date, Verhage provides a rich and illustrative insight in the world of compliance officers and the sometimes paradoxical AML system that they have to work within.

Antoinette Verhage currently works as assistant-professor at Ghent University, department of Penal Law & Criminology. She holds a Phd from the Department of Penal Law and Criminology at Ghent University, Belgium. She is also a co-director of the Research Group Social Analysis of Security (Ghent University) and is co-promoter of several research projects. Apart from her current research activities, she also teaches in the field of the criminal justice system and qualitative research methods.