#19 Have We Lost the War on Money Laundering? | Professor Louis de Koker
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For more than three decades, the world has invested billions in the fight against money laundering. But has all that investment actually reduced crime — or simply displaced it?
In this compelling conversation, Dawn Pretorius speaks to Professor Louis de Koker, one of the leading voices in financial crime research, about whether the global AML/CFT system is still fit for purpose.
They explore why organised crime continues to evolve, why the AML system may still be operating on thinking developed in the 1980s, and whether we have become too focused on banks, compliance and suspicious transaction reporting rather than going after the criminals themselves.
The conversation moves into the difficult questions around cryptocurrency, stablecoins, AI, fraud, regulatory impact assessments, and the unintended consequences of regulation. Professor de Koker argues for new thinking, better research, stronger public-private partnerships, and a greater focus on actual impact rather than simply compliance.
And perhaps most importantly, they ask: What would happen if we measured success not by how many reports are filed, but by how much crime is actually disrupted?
In this compelling conversation, Dawn Pretorius speaks to Professor Louis de Koker, one of the leading voices in financial crime research, about whether the global AML/CFT system is still fit for purpose.
They explore why organised crime continues to evolve, why the AML system may still be operating on thinking developed in the 1980s, and whether we have become too focused on banks, compliance and suspicious transaction reporting rather than going after the criminals themselves.
The conversation moves into the difficult questions around cryptocurrency, stablecoins, AI, fraud, regulatory impact assessments, and the unintended consequences of regulation. Professor de Koker argues for new thinking, better research, stronger public-private partnerships, and a greater focus on actual impact rather than simply compliance.
And perhaps most importantly, they ask: What would happen if we measured success not by how many reports are filed, but by how much crime is actually disrupted?
Chapters
- 00:00 Introduction: Is the AML System Still Fit for Purpose?
- 02:22 Crime Displacement, Not Crime Reduction
- 05:00 Drug Markets and 1980s Thinking in a Modern World
- 06:13 $200 Billion a Year: The Cost of AML CFT
- 07:23 What FATF Cannot Change - and Why
- 08:14 Cryptocurrency: From Banned to Mainstream
- 09:42 Blockchain Transparency and the Identity Gap
- 12:20 Regulating Crypto Like Fiat Currency: The Travel Rule Problem
- 14:22 P2P Transactions and the Limits of VASP Regulation
- 15:05 FATF's Shoestring Budget and Lack of Research Capacity
- 18:43 Banks as Crime Detectors: A Flawed Assumption
- 21:11 The Epstein Problem and Systemic Bank Accountability
- 24:22 Fraud, Telcos and Social Media: The Regulatory Gap
- 25:42 South Africa's Business Against Crime: A Model Worth Revisiting
- 29:59 Rebuilding Public-Private Partnerships for Financial Crime
- 31:17 Evidence-Based Compliance: Beyond Suspicious Report Counting
- 32:35 Bounty Hunting and Incentivising Private Action Against Crime
- 35:38 AI and Financial Crime: An Arms Race Without a Referee
- 38:44 Building Cross-Stakeholder Resilience in the AML Community
- 42:04 Closing Thoughts: Power in Numbers
