Laundering Pirates? The Potential Role of Anti-money Laundering in Countering Maritime Piracy

Nance MT, Jakobi AP. Laundering Pirates? The Potential Role of Anti-money Laundering in Countering Maritime Piracy. Journal Of International Criminal Justice. 2012;10(4):857-880.Officials only recently have begun considering the use of financial investigative techniques, especially anti-money laundering (AML) tactics, in counter-piracy efforts. Europol and INTERPOL are attempting to establish coordinated law enforcement approaches to the problem of piracy, while the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering has generated early research on the possible use of AML in particular. Based on an analysis of the evolution of the AML regime more broadly, we suggest that a financial law enforcement approach, on paper, could be a valuable additional tool in countering piracy. To date, however, two obstacles have limited the wider acceptance of those tools. First, until very recently, no 'norm entrepreneur' has stepped forward to make financial investigative tactics a central tool in counter-piracy efforts. Secondly, while 'following the money' has much potential as a means of fighting piracy, we still know too little about the on-shore side of piracy to put those tools to use