All About FATF, the Global Task Force That’s Going After Dirty Money

The world is awash in dirty money — and criminals who are constantly finding new ways to hide their loot in real estate, art, securities, cryptocurrencies and old fashioned bank accounts. Policing the latest tricks in digital transfers and offshore shell companies falls to financial regulators in each country, but there’s also an obscure international group that’s exerting a growing influence.

For more than three decades, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force has been confronting the challenge of illicit finance. The reputational hit from being added to the FATF’s watchlist has been enough to spur some governments into action, as South Africa and Nigeria did when they stepped up efforts to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.