Testing and Evidencing Compliance with Beneficial Ownership Checks
This project aims to investigate money laundering by African and Central Asian elites by looking at the due diligence requirements in the banking, real estate, charitable and public relations sectors.
Based at the University of Exeter, the project is funded by the DFID-Global Integrity Anti-Corruption Evidence Partnership and will evaluate the effectiveness of the international Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regime. Specifically, the three-year project will examine:
- how elites in Central Asian and African states circumvent existing regulation
- how banking, property and charitable donations are used to exploit loopholes
- how global service providers, often in other countries, enable such behaviour.
The team, led by Dr John Heathershaw (University of Exeter), also includes Professor Alexander A. Cooley (Barnard College/Columbia University) and Professor Jason Sharman (University of Cambridge). Co-investigators include Thomas Mayne (Exeter); Dr Tena Prelec (Oxford); Casey Michel (journalist, affiliated with Columbia); and Professor David Lewis (Exeter).
The research will be supported by research assistants and fellows, and be accountable to an international advisory board composed of academics and civil society representatives from Africa, Central Asia and beyond. The project will also include four workshops organised with partners in the US, UK, Africa and Central Asia.
Further reading:
Project outputs:
- Cooley, A., Prelec, T., Heathershaw, J. and Mayne, T. (2021), Reputation laundering in the university sector of open societies: an international forum working paper, National Endowment for Democracy
- Prelec, T., Furstenberg, S. Heathershaw, J. and Thomson, C. (2021) Is academic freedom at risk from internationalisation? Results from a 2020 survey of UK social scientists, The International Journal of Human Rights.
- Soares de Oliveira, R. and Pitcher, A. (co-editors), Democracy and Autocracy Vol. 20(1) March 2022 “Authoritarian Power in the Global Economy”
- Prelec, Tena, Casey Michel and Thomas Mayne, "Exposing Kleptocracy: Why we need more — and better — collaboration between academics, journalists and anti-corruption campaigners”, in Democracy and Autocracy Vol. 20(1) March 2022 “Authoritarian Power in the Global Economy”, pp.49-55
- Prelec, Tena, “The Magic Wand of Reputation Laundering: Turning Kleptocrats into ‘Engaged Global Citizens’
- Cohen, Corentin and Soares de Oliveira, Ricardo, “Authoritarian Reputation Laundering in Paris and Lisbon”
- Owen, C., Prelec, T. and Mayne, T., "The Illicit Financialisation of Russian Foreign Policy: Mapping the practices that facilitate Russia’s Illicit Financial Flows”, SOC-ACE research programme, research paper 3, May 2022
- Prelec, T. “Russian IFF and political influence in South Eastern Europe: How financial flows and politics intersect in Montenegro and Serbia”, SOC-ACE research programme, briefing note 8, May 2022.