The major money laundering cases coming to light in recent years share a common feature: criminal organizations are making wide use of the opportunities offered by financial havens and offshore centres to launder criminal assets, thereby creating roadblocks to criminal investigations. Financial havens offer an extensive array of facilities to the foreign investor unwilling to disclose the origin of his assets, from the registration of International Business Corporations (IBCs) or shell companies, to the services of a number of “offshore banks” which are not subject to control by regulatory authorities.These issues are analysed in this study because the recent history of international money laundering control makes it clear that the indiscriminate enforcement of bank secrecy laws, as well as the rapid development of financial havens, constitute serious obstacles to criminal investigations and jeopardise efforts undertaken by the international community since the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988 (the '1988 Convention'), which first required the establishment of money laundering as a criminal offence.
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