Doing Business with Criminals: Between Exclusion and Surveillance
Author: Anton Moiseienko
Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2025. 295 pages.
Reviewer: Frederick T. Martens | Spring 2025
My decades of investigating organized crime and public corruption often uncovered some form of money laundering, which proved consequential in achieving a conviction or judgment.[1] “Follow the money,” a dictum central to these types of investigations, became the clarion call among our cadre of detectives and forensic accountants. For this reason alone, money laundering laws and regulations were essential in the so-called “war against organized crime.”
Digesting the brilliant analysis of anti-money laundering (AML) legislation, regulations, and laws, which Anton Moiseienko has so thoughtfully eviscerated, I was left with a queasy feeling: if law enforcement can’t measure the effectiveness of these laws, will we ever know whether or not they achieved their intended purpose? Or as Moiseienkno so bluntly phrased it, “We remain committed to a largely futile endeavor and the best we can do is spend less money ‘making stupid cheap’” (Pp. 213-214). This leads to the age-old dilemma of passing laws based on somewhat vague and fuzzy standards of public morality.
Nonetheless, Moiseienko makes a compelling case for criminalizing money laundering. From the relatively simple rationale that “crime shouldn’t pay” to the more enlightened view, which argues money laundering undermines the economic fabric of a country and its financial institutions that are designed to provide a fair and equitable marketplace, laws and regulations outlawing and conscripting the infusion of ill-gotten gains into the legitimate economy are the intended albeit convoluted consequence (p.63). Furthermore, Moiseienko provides a convincing framework for the costs (i.e., reputational, financial, and privacy) that enforcing these laws has on the economy’s private and public sectors.
For those who have reaped the benefits from this heretofore non-existent “AML-induced Complex”, myself included, the rapid emergence of AML specialists in both the private and public sectors has been nothing short of astonishing, particularly given the political implications of these laws (Pp.22-32). Political campaigns are particularly vulnerable to cash infusion, especially from less-than-reputable sources and foreign governments. This represents a legitimate and powerful rationale for AML laws and also for their repeal.
Moiseienko, in his penetrating analysis of AML laws, frivolously broaches the subject of legalization. “Every once in a while, the notion of money laundering being a victimless crime—and therefore not truly harmful—is floated” (p. 78). He essentially dismisses this policy option, arguing that AML laws and regulations are a fait accompli.
“The language of money laundering…posing a ‘threat’ or ‘risk’ to regulated businesses has become well accepted in a compliance industry now steeped in threat assessments and risk assessments” (p. 63). “The corpus of AML rules we now have has emerged in response to well-founded and persistent concerns about the accumulation of wealth by organized crime groups and the legitimate economy’s complicity in it—in moral and, sometimes legal terms,” Moiseienko contends (p.72).
Of course, our drug laws, laws criminalizing sex workers, and laws against gambling are also predicated on moral arguments, often devoid of legal rationales. Nonetheless, some governments have chosen to legalize or decriminalize these activities, mitigating enforcement’s onerous costs and long-term consequences.[2]
Moiseienko meticulously parses the onerous regulations and laws governing AML enforcement in the private sector, ultimately suggesting his reforms would divest drug trafficking groups, terrorist organizations, and other domestic and transnational criminal networks of their illicit proceeds. Additionally, the intelligence derived from this strategically-focused approach would allow law enforcement to “collect high-quality intelligence on the economic activities of suspected criminals and terrorists” (p.209).
Leaving few stones unturned, Moiseienko rightfully questions the nexus between the private sector and law enforcement. “Is it appropriate for regulated businesses to second-guess their customers’ potential engagement in criminal activity” (p.99)? Furthermore, does not the customer, who has not been accused, charged, or convicted of a crime, deserve an inviolate presumption of privacy in their dealings with a regulated business (Pp . 100-113)?
Having said that, he argues, “AML regulation is based on reasonable instincts about what should be done in response to money laundering” (p. 131). However, he ultimately concedes “we have no answers to these big picture, conceptual policy conundrums” (p.201).
Trained as a lawyer as opposed to a social scientist, Moiseienko reverts to “the law of the instrument.”[3]
Moiseienko appears to propose an AML regime that aligns AML with indigenous law enforcement priorities. “The nature of reporting obligations imposed on regulated businesses should reflect a careful consideration of the types of reporting that best support law enforcement activities in the country concerned, as well as the privacy tradeoffs involved” (p. 209).
This one sentence raises the inevitable question: To what extent does government in regulating business become the ultimate landlord or arbiter, imposing endless and potentially financially crippling mandates on its tenants? Furthermore, any AML regime that cannot measure its effectiveness in promoting or achieving its primary objectives should be viewed as another form of taxation, with little to no accountability.
Notwithstanding his penetrating and persuasive assessment of the current state of AML affairs, Moiseienko’s prescription imposes more of the same, albeit a decidedly measured labyrinth of rules and regulations. Costly risk assessments, mitigation protocols, and adjudicating violations will not disappear. Or to paraphrase Moiseienko, “making stupid a bit more discriminating but no less costly.”
Perhaps we should revisit Miami in the 1970s and 1980s, when Pecunia non olet was the governing mantra. There are lessons to be learned from this socioeconomic “experiment” that, in retrospect, may address some of the “big picture, policy conundrums” Moiseienko raises.
Frederick T. Martens is a member of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime and a former President of The International Association for the Study of Organized Crime (IASOC).
[1] Liddick, Donald. (2024). Organized Crime, Public Corruption: Ernie Preate and the Pennsylvania Crime Commission. Pittsburg, Pennsylvania: Edwin Mellen Press.
[2] For a detailed assessment of drug decriminalization/legalization/liberalization see Drug Liberalization: Wikipedia. Rorie. Melissa. (2017). Regulating a “Pariah” Industry: The Need For A Responsive Approach in Gambling Markets. Las Vegas: University of Nevada. Skolnick, Jerome R. (1978). House of Cards: The Legalization and Control of Casino Gambling. Boston: Little Brown. Harvard Kennedy School. (November 15, 2024) Legalized Gambling Is Exploding Globally: What Policies Can Limit Its Harms? Weitzer, Ronald. (2012). Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business. New York: New York University Press.
[3] Kaplan, Abraham. (1964) The Conduct of Inquiry: Methodology for Behavioral Science. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co. p. 28.
