Financial Services Advisor

Michael Carter, senior director in the financial crimes team at Alvarez & Marsal: “Indicators that relate directly to any country or region’s ability to fight financial crime include political stability, effectiveness of government, regulatory quality, rule of law and level of violent crime. According to indicia most recently measured by the World Bank, Colombia is among the countries seeing regressions in these measurements. Specifically, Colombia is in the bottom half of countries in three of the five categories, and it ranks in the dismal 16th percentile in political instability and politically-motivated violence. As most countries do not operate in vacuums, it’s no coincidence that the devolving situation in Venezuela could be a contributing factor to Colombia’s money laundering issues as people, capital and criminals flee the country for ‘greener’ pastures. Neighboring Panama is listed as one of FATF’s global high-risk jurisdictions, and Ecuador ranks in the bottom half of all five aforementioned measurements. Grenada and Saint Lucia, however, rank much higher across the World Bank rankings, indicating other sources of money laundering weaknesses. While political stability and quality may not…”