Note
Author affiliated with Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Remarks of Joseph M. Myers, Assistant Director (International Programs) Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, U.S. Department of the Treasury for the International Symposium on the Prevention and Control of Financial Fraud Beijing, 19 - 22 October, 1998.
Summary
As the financial systems of the world grow increasingly interconnected, international cooperation has been, and must continue to be, fundamental in curtailing the growing influence on national economies of drug trafficking, financial fraud, other serious transnational organized crime, and the laundering of proceeds of such crimes. Of course, to be fully successful, the international response to the problem of money laundering depends upon political support from the governments of the world. But I would like to emphasize today that much of the most important international work is being conducted by specialists and experts, who are not pursuing a foreign policy agenda per se. These experts, from various financial and regulatory, law enforcement and judicial fields, act together internationally. But they do so in their own national interests, for the purpose of ensuring the integrity of their own financial services providers and enforcing national law, as they increasingly understand that direct cooperation is essential if governments are to have a chance of success in pursuing criminals and their ill gotten gains from one jurisdiction to another.