Unmasking Money Laundering: Investigating its Prevalence and Impact in the UK

Running head: DISSERTATION
Dissertation
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors Note

Dissertation
1
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.0 Overview
Money laundering along with crime is found to have its origin not only in United Kingdom
but also in different parts of the whole world such that no country can claim that it is absolutely
immune from this ill practice.1 The people who are mostly involved in this money laundering
practice are actually government officers who actually commit the act of transferring of the
public money. It shows that obsession of the criminals for cleaning illicit money has outgrown
the legitimate attempts of mitigating the risk of this crime.2 This topic is very important as the
aim behind the crime is to conceal the funds derived by crime by giving it a legitimate
appearance together with retaining control on them. It can be described as the process of
transforming the inputs of illegally earned money into apparently legitimate outputs. In UK, it
has become a serious topic and its prevention has turned to be the key issue with concerns over
potential effects on the country’s economy. Though the approximate estimated costs of money
laundering to the country’s economy ranged from 36 billion pounds to 90 billion pounds as per
NCA 2017: 22 and the costs are considered to be very significant and its prevention is complex
in effort of disrupting the crime. It must be kept in mind that as London is the place of major
finance, UK is found to be proactive in anti-money laundering due to its reputation, global
business confidence and reassurance. Considering the fact that money laundering is a very high
level of crime as it includes not only millions but billions of capital.3 It is on record that money
laundering and fraud are linked with acts of providing money to terrorism and international
sanction which are waived by the perpetrators. This study will thus be used to provide
recommendations to amend various legislations and legal instruments to fight with the crime in
the country.
1 Levi, Michael. "Money for crime and money from crime: Financing crime and laundering crime proceeds."
European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 2015
2 Levi, Michael. Regulating Fraud (Routledge Revivals): White-Collar Crime and the Criminal Process.
Routledge, 2013.
3 Levi, Michael. The phantom capitalists: The organization and control of long-firm fraud. Routledge, 2016.

Dissertation
2
1.1 Scope:
This dissertation will be focussed into the money laundering practice, giving details of
the method by which it is carried out and finally light will be also thrown on various acts and
regulations that have followed in UK to try and fight the crime.4 The scope is made very limited
as by this the study is going to be conducted efficiently.
1.2 Research Aim
1.2.1 Primary aim:
The aim of this research is investigating and analysing the prevalence and the effect of
the money laundering fraud and crime in UK. The purpose behind this study is identifying
whether a systematic approach of crime prevention could develop the present money laundering
methods applicable in UK.
1.2.2 Secondary aim:
The secondary aims of this study are as follows:
 To find the extent of the money laundering fraud and crime existing in the
country,
 To recognize the laws and regulations that redress this crime and their effect on
the control of the crime,5
 To address the technology that had contributed to the existence of the problem,
 To analyse the effect of the money laundering fraud on the country’s economy.
This study will conduct a quantitative study on the above mentioned primary and secondary
aims considering the weightage of the crime not only in this country but also all over the world.
The information collected by the research provides most up to date information on this crime by
addressing the research aims in a broad and detailed way. This crime prevails as a problem for
4 Harrison, Karen, and Nicholas Ryder. The law relating to financial crime in the United Kingdom. Routledge,
2016.
5 Madinger, John. Money laundering: A guide for criminal investigators. CRC Press, 2016.