When a publisher asks an author to write an introduction to his book, there are basically two approaches: do an overview or use it as an opportunity to be egotistical or even to preach about something which is not wholly within the subject of the book, but is perhaps a cause which the author would like to be associated with.

What a dilemma!

Should I tell you about the life I have led in the almost three years since the publication of the first edition? Do you really care?
Of course not. You want to know why money laundering has become such a major topic in the news and in entertainment. You want to know if the huge number of laws being enacted all over the world will have an impact on the way you live and do business. And you want to know if you can get into trouble for behaving in an ordinary way without being intentionally criminal.

And most of all, you want to know that, if the answers are in this book, you can understand them.

The feedback on the first edition was that the book was clear and easy to read, that people in Government and large international financial institutions and commercial organisations found it as applicable to them as those in law enforcement agencies and those in small businesses and professional firms.

So, I have kept the style as loose as in the first edition. I have included more law but, as in the first edition, have kept the explanations as unlawyer-like as possible.

The first edition sold on every continent except Antarctica. Presumably penguins have not yet recognised the benefits of running an offshore centre – after all, as we will see in the new sections on offshore banking, e-commerce and cyber-crime, the internet has made it possible to set up a scheme that can be run from anywhere whilst pretending to run it from somewhere else.

And the biggest challenge which will face many over the next two or three years will be to deny criminals the opportunities created by the introduction of the Euro.

For me, the interesting thing about setting out to write this introduction is how much of the introduction to the first edition remains relevant. And so, instead of simply rehashing the earlier work, the original introduction is repeated, unedited but with some footnotes, after this one. As you read the book, you will see, despite frantic pronouncements by Governments and others, and the weight of legislation which has been passed world-wide, how little has actually changed in the period since the first edition was published in February 1996.

Nigel Morris-Cotterill
November 1998