Leicester criminologist studies money laundering
University criminologist Dr Matt Hopkins has been involved in a new study on money laundering. He has contributed to the report which assessed which are the regions in Italy, the Netherlands and UK with the highest risk of money laundering and which are the most vulnerable economic sectors.
The final report of Project IARM - Identifying and Assessing the Risk of Money Laundering in Europe provides some first preliminary answers to these questions.
Started in January 2015, Project IARM was co-funded by the European Commission and coordinated by Transcrime - Research Centre of the Università Cattolica Sacro Cuore in cooperation with Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (The Netherlands) and University of Leicester (United Kingdom).
Adopting a quantitative approach, project IARM has developed a composite indicator of money laundering risk at geographic area level and at business sector level. The indicator combines a variety of risk factors, grouped between money laundering (ML) threats and vulnerabilities, then transformed into a set of proxy variables. Among the covered risk factors, for example, the infiltration of organised crime groups, the level of tax evasion, cash intensiveness and the opacity and complexity of the ownership structure of businesses registered in a certain area or business sector. The methodology was tested in three pilot countries: Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
For full details see the Executive summary, the full Report, and the European Commission website.