Free trade zones (FTZs) across Latin America and the Caribbean are vulnerable to illicit trade, according to a detailed and comprehensive new OECD report, Free trade zones and illicit gold flows in Latin America and the Caribbean. It focuses on… Read More ›

Latin America
Inadequate due diligence and beneficial ownership transparency facilitating US$23 billion illegal fishing industry
Lax supply chain due diligence and a lack of beneficial ownership transparency are amongst factors allowing one-fifth of the global fisheries market to be captured by operators involved in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, a new report from the… Read More ›
WCO, Egmont Group and Interpol successfully conclude first Latin American AML/CFT operation
The World Customs Organisation (WCO), Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) and Interpol have successfully concluded their first anti-money laundering and counter financing terrorism financing (AML/CTF) joint investigation in the Western Hemisphere. Operation Tentacle-Latin America revealed extensive illicit movements… Read More ›
TBML not well understood, even by financial experts
The principal vulnerability to trade-based money laundering (TBML) in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region is that it is not well understood, even by financial crime experts according to Global Financial Integrity (GFI). For its latest survey, Financial… Read More ›
GFI survey includes TBML amongst four key financial crimes in Latin America and the Caribbean
Trade-based money laundering (TBML) is one of four types of financial criminality examined in a comprehensive survey of 250 financial crime experts in Latin America and the Caribbean published by Global Financial Integrity (GFI). The Washington-based non-profit focused on illicit… Read More ›
TBML and FTZs allowing IFFs to proliferate across Latin America
Trade-based money laundering (TBML) and free-trade zones (FTZs) are amongst the mechanisms that allow for illicit financial flows (IFFs) to proliferate across Latin America the UK government has said in a recently issued tender. It calls for a study into… Read More ›
Coronavirus pandemic likely to weaken Latin American capacity to curb money
With the coronavirus pandemic now likely to weaken state capacity across Latin America, money laundering – including trade-based money laundering (TBML) – will continue to flourish, according to two analysts based in separate Washington-based think tanks. Andrés Martínez-Fernández and Julia… Read More ›