Assessing the risk of money laundering in Europe. Final Report of Project IARM

Project IARM develops an exploratory methodology for assessing the risk of money laundering (ML). In particular, it develops a composite indicator of money laundering risk: • at geographic area level • at business sector level The methodology is tested in three pilot countries (Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom). IARM is co-funded by the Prevention of and Fight against Crime Programme of the European Union and it has been carried out by an international consortium coordinated by Transcrime – Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Italy). Other research partners are: • the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (the Netherlands) • the University of Leicester (United Kingdom) Support was provided by the Italian Ministry for the Economy and Finance, the UIF – the Italian Financial Intelligence Unit, within the Bank of Italy, the Dutch Ministry of Finance, the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice and the UK NPCC – National Police Chiefs’ Council. Support was also provided by the UK Home Office. IARM adopts a quantitative approach which complements the qualitative perspective of most existing national and supranational ML risk assessments (NRA and SNRA). It responds to the need, stressed by regulatory developments at both EU and national level, to develop objective and robust methodologies for ML risk assessment.