Project ‘Links between corruption and money laundering in the Nordic countries’

A project of the Ministry of Justice and Police University College on corruption and money laundering in the Nordic operating environment, relating to international business, is in progress in 2020–2021. The project is funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers.

 

The project’s objectives are the following:

• to prepare a preliminary description, based on research literature, of the links between corruption and money laundering, and the perspective of international business relating to the topic

• to investigate methods and procedures to enable the entities obliged to report, supervisors, Financial Intelligence Units and other responsible authorities to identify suspicious international business transactions indicative of corruption

• to investigate methods and procedures to enable the authorities and other parties involved in combating corruption to identify suspicious international business transactions indicative of money laundering

• to outline potential indicators and risk assessment tools in particular to identify transactions related to international corruption.

Several project in progress, linked to the themes of corruption and money laundering, are connected to the study. A preliminary study has been prepared for implementing the second national risk assessment of money laundering, and the preparation of the actual risk assessment is scheduled for 2020–2021. The project also supports work related to the anti-corruption strategy (Ministry of Justice) and the action plan for tackling the grey economy and economic crime. In addition, the study is linked to the recently completed KORSI project (in Finnish) on identifying indicators for monitoring corruption in Finland.

The aim of the study is to increase awareness of corruption and money laundering related to international business among the authorities and other parties. It produces further information about the links between various phenomena and charts possible tools for risk assessment, targeting of prevention efforts and impact monitoring. The project also supports training and education on, and increasing awareness of, the topic.