Financial crime


Financial crime is crime committed against property, involving the unlawful conversion of the ownership of property to one's own personal use and benefit. Financial crimes may involve fraud, bank fraud, insurance fraud, market manipulation, payment ; theft; scams or confidence tricks; tax evasion; bribery; sedition; embezzlement; identity theft; money laundering; and forgery and counterfeiting, including the production of Counterfeit money and consumer goods.
Financial crimes may involve additional criminal acts, such as computer crime and elder abuse, even violent crimes such as robbery, armed robbery or murder. Financial crimes may be carried out by individuals, corporations, or by organized crime groups. Victims may include individuals, corporations, governments, and entire economies.

Bribery

The U.S. introduced the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in 1977 to address bribery of foreign officials. This legislation dominated international anti-corruption enforcement until around 2010 when other countries began introducing broader and more robust legislation, notably the United Kingdom Bribery Act 2010. The International Organization for Standardization introduced an international anti-bribery management system standard in 2016. In recent years, cooperation in enforcement action between countries has increased.

Money Laundering

For most countries, money laundering and terrorist financing raise significant issues with regard to prevention, detection and prosecution. Sophisticated techniques used to launder money and finance terrorism add to the complexity of these issues. Such sophisticated techniques may involve different types of financial institutions; multiple financial transactions; the use of intermediaries, such as financial advisers, accountants, shell corporations and other service providers; transfers to, through, and from different countries; and the use of different financial instruments and other kinds of value-storing assets. Money laundering is, however, a fundamentally simple concept. It is the process by which proceeds from a criminal activity are disguised to conceal their true origin. Basically, money laundering involves the proceeds of criminally derived property rather than the property itself.
Money laundering can be defined in a number of ways, most countries subscribe to the definition adopted by the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances and the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime :
The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, which is recognized as the international standard setter for Anti-money Laundering efforts, defines the term "money laundering" briefly as "the processing of criminal proceeds to disguise their illegal origin" in order to "legitimize" the ill-gotten gains of crime.
In 2005, money laundering within the financial industry in the UK was believed to amount to £25bn a year. In 2009, a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime study estimated that criminal proceeds amounted to 3.6% of global GDP, with 2.7%  being laundered.

Fraud

In 2005, fraud within the financial industry was estimated to cost the UK £14bn a year.