Money Laundering Law

In the past twenty years action in respect to the profits of crime has moved rapidly up the criminal justice agenda. Not only may confiscation orders be made, but there are also now serious substantive criminal offenses of laundering the proceeds of crime. Moreover, the consequences of the regulatory regimes put in place by the Money Laundering Regulations 1993 and the Financial Services Authority are very significant. This book examines critically the history, theory and practice of all these developments, culminating in the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, which marks another step in the move towards greater concentration both on the financial aspects of crime and on the internationalization of criminal law. The Act puts in place the Assets Recovery Agency which will be central to the strategy of targeting criminal monies and will have power to bring forfeiture proceedings without a prior criminal conviction and to raise assessments for taxation.