Shakespeare suggests that the offender's bag of gold may subvert justice and the law, and, in this chapter, we explore the modernday crime that not only subverts the ‘rotten State of Denmark’ but the whole world. At one level, corruption is just an important crime type in the global war on dirty money, but at another it enables many other types of crime, so its importance is amplified. Curiously, it remains undefined. The United Nations Convention against Corruption (2003) has clear definitions of dirty money (the result of corruption offences) and clear definitions of anticorruption techniques (such as freezing and confiscation), but corruption itself remains elusive. We favour the Transparency International definition of ‘the abuse of entrusted power for private gain’, but who are we? At the time of writing, eminent university Professors of Corruption – Rothstein (Gothenburg), Stephenson (Harvard) and Barrington (Sussex) – were having a public set-to over whether anti-corruption efforts were measurable or even working at all, via the excellent Global Anti-Corruption Blog, which we commend to those interested in corruption. We make no comment on this debate; we simply observe that it is lively, widespread and unresolved.

Our focus is on dirty money and that means crime. Remember, money laundering depends on a crime being committed. No crime, no laundering. The trouble is that some world leaders are directly involved in corruption, which makes it very difficult for the prosecutors, whom they appoint, promote and pay, to prosecute them for their corruption crimes. Without prosecutors prepared to prosecute corruption, it can appear that there is no corruption in any given country. Victims do not usually come forward to allege corruption by the political leadership, it is too dangerous, and, in that sense, corruption is a victimless crime. The victims of grand corruption are the people of the country whose leaders are helping themselves to the national wealth. The prosecutors do not prosecute, and the police do not record the crime, there are no official statistics. Our knowledge of grand corruption is reliant on brave journalists, brave whistle-blowers and NGOs. Our statistical knowledge is so poor that little, if anything, can be relied upon to quantify our understanding.