Transnational economic crime: The example of “gold laundering”

Abstract

Allow me first to thank the organisers of this conference for affording me the honour of giving this opening speech. The issues which the conference is addressing indeed are closely interlinked. Corruption almost always leads to money laundering. And, increasingly, new criminal methods are being developed, in particular the use blockchain technology. From the perspective of the black-letter lawyer, though, we have become used to treating the topics of corruption and money laundering separately, because we focus on concrete offences – and rightfully so. However, if you apply a social sciences approach or, even more so, if you look at the field of challenges from a development assistance perspective, a much broader picture emerges.