Anti-Money Laundering in a Nutshellis a concise, accessible, and practical guide to compliance with anti-money laundering law for financial professionals, corporate investigators, business managers, and all personnel of financial institutions who are required, under penalty of hefty fines, to get anti-money laundering training.

Money laundering is endemic. As much as 5 percent of global GDP ($3.6 trillion) is laundered by criminals each year. It’s no wonder that every financial institution in the United States-including banks, credit card companies, insurers, securities brokerages, private funds, and money service businesses-must comply with complex examination, training, and reporting requirements mandated by a welter of federal anti-money laundering (AML) laws. Ignorance of crime is no excuse before the law. Financial institutions and businesses that unknowingly serve as conduits for money laundering are no less liable to prosecution and fines than those that condone or abet it.

In Anti-Money Laundering in a Nutshell: Awareness and Compliance for Financial Personnel and Business Managers, Kevin Sullivan draws on a distinguished career as an AML agent and consultant to teach personnel in financial institutions what money laundering is, who does it, how they do it, how to prevent it, how to detect it, and how to report it in compliance with federal law. He traces the dynamic interplay among employees, regulatory examiners, compliance officers, fraud and forensic accountants and technologists, criminal investigators, and prosecutors in following up on reports, catching launderers, and protecting the integrity and reputations of financial institutions and businesses. In particular, corporate investigators will gain rich insights winnowed from the author’s experiences as a New York State and federal investigator.