While COVID-19 continues to harm people in every corner of the world, international practices, such as trade, have the potential to produce a multitude of benefits and support economic recovery from the crisis. But trade depends on the availability of trade finance; today, more than ever before, cooperation between public and private sectors is required to both navigate out of the calamity and rejuvenate top pre-COVID-19 goals such as sustainability.
“Trade Based Money Laundering (TBML) is an important component of the underlying system that supports all transnational crime. It’s far more complex than any other type of financial investigation and requires a lot more co-operation across agencies and across national jurisdictions,” says Mark Giuffre, former special agent for the American Drug Enforcement Administration.
There is much rhetoric around the opportunities provided by emerging markets. And there is plenty of discourse around the fact that banks are de-risking and retreating from such areas. The fact of the matter is that some regions of the world are riskier to operate in.