INTRODUCTION
The events of 9/11 triggered a regulatory merger between two operationally distinct processes – money laundering and terrorist finance. Supported with a huge commitment led by several international organizations, several states (130 to be precise)[1] undertook the conversion of their voluntary preventive regulatory structure, consisting of financial obligations on reporting entities, into a mandatory reporting regime. The conversion can be traced to a specific event – the issuance in October 2001 by the Financial Action Task Force on Anti-Money Laundering (‘Task Force’ or ‘FATF’) of Nine Special Recommendations on Terrorist Finance (‘Nine Special Recommendations’ or ‘Special Recommendations’). Compelling the regulatory merger was a largely untested assumption, namely, that nominal financial difference exists between crime and insurgency.[2]
[1] Financial Action Task Force, (FATF) History (Paris, FATF, 1989)
[2] For example, U.S., Department of the Treasury, National Money Laundering Strategy 2002 (Washington D.C., 2002), The Bureau of International Information Programs of the U.S. Department of State, , visited on 26 June 2009; U.S., Department of the Treasury, National Money Laundering Strategy 2003 (Washington D.C., 2003); Financial Action Task Force (FATF), FATF Guidance for Financial Institutions in Detecting Terrorist Financing, (24 April 2002) , visited on 26 June 2009;Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Report on Money Laundering Typologies (2003-2004) , visited on 26 June 2009