Travel for Pennies

Enforcement agencies and financial institutions around the world are making the fight against terrorist financing the top priority. Included is the inter-woven fights against money laundering, drug trafficking, embezzlement and fraud. This has become an international quest, to protect not only the citizens of every country, but the integrity of the financial systems of the world as well. The ultimate goal is to completely cut off available resources of terrorists, and to make it more difficult for terrorists to find ways to fund their destructive enterprises and to ensure that criminals pay for their crimes, instead of getting paid for them. The consequences for not attempting and succeeding in the abolition of terrorist funding and money laundering are consequences that affect the international financial systems, their integrity and stability, as well as the safety of the entire human race.

These activities present problems in societies worldwide. These criminals take advantage of the countries with ineffective or weak controls and they exploit the laws and systems by conducting transactions in various jurisdictions concurrently. The longer a country waits to address the issues of money laundering, the more entrenched the criminal element becomes in their society. This not only affects the banking of a particular country, but has detrimental effects on the over-all economy, as foreign businesses and investors will stay away from those countries, so as to not become involved in potential criminal activity or scandal.

In 1989, a task force was established in Paris, during a G-7 Summit. This is the Financial Action Task Force which focuses on the battle against money laundering, and includes members of the governments of thirty four different countries. The task force had the responsibility of creating a standard for worldwide practices and policies. They work together with the United Nations, the World Bank, and the IMF. This coordination of the different agencies, and the coordination of the various countries of the world, is the only way the international corruption can be addressed and will ensure to further the fight towards the end of terrorism and international crimes in the financial realm as well as in the societal realm.

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