Money Laundering and Illicit Financial Flows: Following the Money and Value Trails

John A. Cassara
Release date:May 14, 2020
Language:English
Pages:372
ISBN:9798645880606
Publisher:Independently Published
Price:Paperback (€ 12.29), Ebook (€ 8.33)

Outside of crimes of passion, criminals, criminal organisations, kleptocrats, and some businesses and corporations are motivated by greed. In today’s increasingly interconnected world, the criminal manifestations of unchecked avarice impact all of us – politically, socially, economically, and culturally. Transnational crime effects our individual and collective security. The magnitude of crime is measured in the multi-trillions of dollars annually. Laundering or hiding and disguising the proceeds of crime is essential for criminal organisations.

Unfortunately, the last thirty years have demonstrated that our anti-money laundering (AML) countermeasures are not effective. Examining the “metrics that matter,” we are a “decimal point away from total failure.” The outlook going forward is not promising. Money Laundering and Illicit Financial Flows – Following the Money and Value Trails is the first book to take a hard look at our AML track record. Written primarily from a law enforcement perspective, the book examines old and new money laundering methodologies. It exposes threats, enablers, and facilitators.

Making the case for an AML paradigm shift, the book offers alternative steps forward. Combining facts, straight-forward explanations, case studies, as well as the author’s personal experiences, views and commentary, this book is valuable to the public and private sectors, policy makers, as well as students and concerned citizens. As a former Treasury Special Agent, John Cassara has investigated and studied money laundering for over 30 years. Equally at home in back streets or government bureaucracies, he has a unique perspective and offers an insider’s knowledge. He delights in telling it as it is. The author of five books and countless articles on money laundering and threat finance, Cassara continues to surface important issues that deserve our attention.


John A. Cassara

John Cassara began his 26 year government career as a covert intelligence officer during the Cold War. He later served as a Treasury Special Agent in both the U.S. Secret Service and US Customs Service where he investigated money laundering, trade fraud and international smuggling. He was an undercover arms dealer for two years. Assigned overseas, he developed expertise in Middle East money laundering, value transfer and underground financial systems. He also worked six years within Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Mr. Cassara’s final assignment was with Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI). Since his retirement, he has lectured in the United States and around the world on a variety transnational crime issues. Mr. Cassara has authored or co-authored several articles and books, including Hide and Seek, Intelligence, Law Enforcement and the Stalled War on Terrorist Finance (2006 Potomac Books) and On the Trail of Terror Finance – What Intelligence and Law Enforcement Officers Need to Know (2010 Red Cell IG). Demons of Gadara, the first novel to deal with terror finance, was released in 2013. Trade-Based Money Laundering: The Next Frontier in International Money Laundering Enforcement (2016 Wiley) and Money Laundering and Illicit Financial Flows: Following the Money and Value Trails (2020) are his latest books.