Money Laundering and the Crime Nexus: A Case Study in Malta

Abstract

This paper analyses the role of money laundering in contemporary financial capitalism and how it consolidates synergies between corporations, crime and corrupt governments. Through a case study of a fuel smuggling operation by an alleged criminal syndicate based in Malta, it examines how systems criminality operates across a continuum of legality and illegality driven by a strategic network of individual, corporate and state actors. It also examines the wider socio-economic, political and imperialist implications of money laundering on both the local and global spheres. As the rise in money laundering merges with the proliferation of other criminal offences, dissecting this crime nexus calls for increased synergies in transnational solidarities against capitalism, imperialism, and systems criminality.