Discretion and Decision Making in Money Laundering Prosecutions Available to Purchase

‘Recovering the Proceeds of Crime’, a report by the Performance and Innovation Unit of the Cabinet Office, observed that, historically, there have been very few prosecutions for money laundering in England and Wales. Indeed, in the 12‐year period 1987 to 1998, there were only 357 prosecutions. By way of comparison, in 1995 there were 2,034 prosecutions for money laundering in the USA alone. Given that it is generally accepted there is a significant amount of money laundering in the UK, why is the number of prosecutions so low? There are, arguably, four principal factors which have an impact on the prosecution rate for any criminal offence and each of the four affects the prosecution rate for money laundering.