Celebrity status

In media entertainment, in films and TV, organised crime is associated with glamour. From Bond villains to McMafia, from the Godfather to the Jackie Chan film series, the baddies are seen in luxurious mansions and yachts, eating in the best restaurants, and hardly ever doing anything that looks like work.

These modern portrayals of organised crime get some added visual magic from the banking system. Consider the instant transfer of funds in the TV series The Night Manager, where the illicit arms deal is confirmed by a huge transfer of funds in a luxurious Egyptian salon, authorised from a laptop by a handsome young man after a single retina scan. In the film, The Bourne Identity, the government assassin gains instant access to multiple identities, cash and weaponry in a safety deposit box held in the tight but obsequious security of a sumptuous Swiss Bank. This miracle is achieved just by knowing a number and a scan of his palm print.

The sophistication of the criminals’ lifestyle is matched only by the sophistication of how they deal with money. Yet we have conflated the two, instilling the criminal and their money launderer with superpowers. After all, ordinary people do not see themselves routinely jetting from mansion to yacht to private Caribbean beach; they may aspire to, but it is largely beyond their financial power. The worship of celebrity tends not to question the origin of wealth until an arrest is made. The wealthy may have their suspicions about each other, the same as any person in the street, but they still sit together in the best restaurants, mingle at charity dinners and walk through the same VIP doors. They also use the same professional help to manage their wealth. This perception of money launderers has sadly been perpetuated by the authorities for far too long. As Janet Reno stated, while serving as Attorney General of the United States from 1993 to 2001: “Money laundering is a very sophisticated crime, and we must be equally sophisticated.”