Money laundering risks in Malta have been in the headlines recently.

Local governments in the Peruvian regions of Piura, La Libertad and San Martín have held public accountability consultations to listen to citizens’ views and encourage greater participation.

At the opening of a five-day workshop in Malawi on Mutual Legal Assistance and the Misuse of Offshore Structures to Conceal Beneficial Ownership, the Honourable Justice Dr. Chifundo Kachale hit the nail on the head. Imprisonment alone is not enough, he said. Recovering the stolen assets sends a strong message that crime does not, and should not, pay.

Another 30 specialised judges in Peru have benefited from innovative training in Extinción de Dominio, a new form of legislation that allows stolen assets to be confiscated even if the asset holder cannot formally be convicted of a crime.

The two-day course, which took place on 3–4 September in the Superior Court of the city of Trujillo, is part of a wider series of training programmes aimed at building the capacity of specialised judges across Peru to implement the new legislation.

During his former position as Compliance Operations Manager at LafargeHolcim, compliance and communications professional Kyle Lewis worked closely with the Basel Institute on developing a new open-source search tool to help compliance officers spot and analyse links between individuals, organisations and criminal activities. He kindly provided this testimonial for the Basel Institute's Annual Report 2018.

During 2018 and 2019, the world has faced serious money laundering scandals involving reputable institutions. Surprisingly, abuses of financial systems were uncovered in countries that have low risk scores in the Basel AML Index, like Estonia and Sweden.

Falling rankings in the Basel AML Index, released today, show how many countries’ AML systems are a weak defence against today’s money laundering risks.

Ineffective anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) systems and lack of transparency are leaving the door open to increasingly sophisticated money laundering schemes.

There are still a few spaces available on a two-day FinTech AML Compliance course on cryptocurrencies and money laundering. The course is delivered by the Basel Institute in partnership with Swiss law firm MME and will take place on 10–11 December at MME's offices in Zurich, Switzerland.