Edinburgh Napier University

  Trade-Based Money Laundering (TBML) represents an important channel of criminal activity. Given the high growth of international trade in recent years and lack of specific international standards to combat money laundering in global trade system, TBML has become increasingly attractive to criminals for laundering money. Despite the ever-increasing threat of TBML, it is surprising to note that very little attention has been paid, so far, by governments and international communities to combat this unique form of money laundering. This paper critically evaluates the current international regulatory framework to combat TBML and argues it to be inefficient to deal with TBML. However, while analysing various difficulties and challenges in adopting and implementing AML standards in the trading sector, it argues that imposing mandatory international standards to combat TBML at this stage would be premature and unnecessary. This paper argues that enhancing current international cooperation between jurisdictions in exchanging trade data and information appears to be the best way forward to fight TBML.