When Rob Wainwright took over the helm of the EU’s law enforcement agency Europol in 2009, he faced a big problem: “Black holes.”

That’s how he refers to the massive gaps in information-sharing he found between EU countries on topics from terrorism to money laundering.

As Europe was hit by a series of terror attacks — from Paris to Brussels, from Nice to Berlin — the profile of the EU agency increased and so did the amount of information on terrorism that national governments fed into its databases. However, the same progress has not been made in the fight against financial crime.

“Professional money launderers — and we have identified 400 at the top, top level in Europe — are running billions of illegal drug and other criminal profits through the banking system with a 99 percent success rate,” he said…..Politico.EU

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