11 - Information and intelligence sharing

Summary

They have all the money and none of the awkward rules, whereas we have all of the rules and none of the money to do anything worthwhile.

Anon

The Cambridge Analytica story, which broke in 2018, gave an indication as to the way in which enormous amounts of confidential information could easily be extracted from a vast number of people via a single system. Even before then, society was becoming quickly accustomed to the gathering and sharing of personal data. In terms of AML/CFT, the FATF perhaps do just this as they capture details via MERs. Later, they share these details of money laundering and terrorism financing activities via typology reports – most interwoven to foster partnership working. A point often iterated in the closing comments of conferences organised by law enforcement and commercially interested AML/CFT organisations.

Yet are partnerships simply a practice of ‘smoke and mirrors’, within an already inefficient ‘global AML/CFT regime’? Are partnerships simply a cover for mediocre performance? Or are partnerships and the demand for information and intelligence sharing agreements the foundation of a much bigger excuse ready when questions are asked as to why things have not improved?

We think it is worth adding some context to partnerships before we move on. There are, of course, various partners involved in such partnerships, sometimes making the term partnership unclear. Simply, we should not conflate all those who take part in preventing, detecting and prosecuting money laundering under the term partnerships. We recognise Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) try to separate public organisations from private entities, but that is only part of the description which we see is not always appreciated against the backdrop of conflicting motivations and drivers and the protective mindsets (for obvious commercial reasons) of financial institutions. Alongside this are the different drivers and institutional jealousies within the publicsector FIUs and across law enforcement. At the same time, most partnerships are operationally focused, leaving little scope for strategic opportunities.

These differences are, perhaps, why partnerships have become a priority opportunity for some. An opportunity, perhaps driven by one's own ineffective and fruitless efforts to date, concluded by the idea that “it's not just our fault!” when things go wrong. Still, the split between the financial sector and law enforcement has always been driven by a need to preserve each side's own intentions.