Disabling the Enablers and Activating the Gatekeepers

Disabling the Enablers and Activating the Gatekeepers

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by iaccAdmin

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Transnational corruption would not exist without a cadre of professionals who – wittingly or unwittingly – help corrupt officials, kleptocrats, and criminals move, launder, and conceal ill-gotten gains through complicated financial transactions and instruments. By abandoning their fiduciary duties and instead facilitating corruption or other forms of illicit finance, these enablers in so-called “gatekeeper professions” cause tremendous harm to societies; their actions may deprive public resources from those in need, cause market distortions that harm citizens’ economic well-being, or help sustain authoritarian and anti-democratic regimes. So far, existing efforts to address the challenges posed by these gatekeepers have fallen short of mitigating their negative impact and have not yet forced a major change in the way they do business. In part, the complexity of defining “enablers” and “enabling activities” and dynamic nature of the risk profiles across jurisdictions have complicated regulatory and supervisory approaches, while challenges regarding information collection and analysis have made it difficult to assemble the full picture of how the enabler ecosystem functions. Creative thinking is needed to find new, effective, and scalable ways to tackle this important problem.

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