Managing Illicit Flows: The Formation of Global Anti-money Laundering Regulations

Abstract

Since the late 1980s, anti-money laundering activities have become a widely disseminated means to fight different sorts of crime, ranging from drug trafficking to corruption or terrorism financing.1 As one consequence, financial institutions and related professions are currently confronted with strict regulations related to, for instance, due diligence or auditing. While states and firms are pressured to introduce and implement these standards, it is less known that these actually originate mainly from a United States effort to internationalize its national regulations. Anti-money laundering standards were thus transferred from a specific national context to the international level, to be subsequently implemented in other places. Like many other managerial ideas, anti-money laundering policies have since become daily practice in organizations around the world (Drori, Meyer, and Hwang 2006).