Intricacies of anti-money laundering and cyber-crimes regulation in a fluid global system

What is it about?

This paper is an attempt to decipher the intricacies on anti-money laundering and cybercrimes regulation in the fluid global regulatory era. The authors have utilized data from selected African and other countries to gain insights into the foregoing offences, and how they are regulated within countries and beyond. This was deemed essential given that both money laundering and cybercrimes are often planned in one country but executed in another but with far a reaching effect in other countries. The main objective of the paper was to decipher the inherent challenges to countries in the fight against the foregoing crimes in an elusive global climate. The findings of the paper have corroborated that the high incidences of money laundering and cybercrimes today are partly fuelled by inherent weaknesses in the global regulatory system; and partly fuelled by weaknesses at an individual state level. Many countries have enacted a raft of anti-cyber and anti-money laundering Legislation but this notwithstanding, these laws have not been used to stem cross border crimes globally. This is partly explained by the fact that many enforcement institutions lack requisite capacity to institute measures through which to implement engendered laws and policies easily. The regulatory capacity of many countries has been eviscerated by deficiencies in infrastructure and systems--a gap which criminals have exploited as an avenue to establish their criminal underworld. Countries will need to step up research studies, to increase investment in robust systems and infrastructure, if they are to remain a step ahead of criminals. There is anecdotal evidence that enhanced cooperation of countries through regional integrated markets to share resources (both financial and technical expertise on cybercrimes, financial crimes) enhance their ability to address overlapping regulatory challenges. States and businesses will also need to benchmark best standards and regulatory practices in other countries which have registered success in reducing incidences of the foregoing offences such as United Kingdom. The paper was designed to interrogate the law, policy and offshoot anti-money laundering and cybercrimes regulation challenges (the subject matter of the paper) in across jurisdictional perspective.

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