Role of banks in money laundering What is mirror trades and do you think this technique can be applicable in Albanian banking system What are the difficulties for policy makers and law enforcement agencies to deal and better monitor money laundering? Elaborate on the role of Deutsche Bank to the 2008 financial crises and what does it indicate in terms of the credibility of banks Money laundering is a technique used by criminals—from mobsters, drug traffickers, terrorists, to corrupt politicians—in order to cover their financial tracks after illegally obtaining money. It’s well-known that money laundering can often involve foreign banks and legitimate businesses. Usually, we would discuss on how do banks prevent these illegal activities but this time we are taking a different path. How do banks help money laundering? Well, just by turning a blind eye they do a lot. Banks should show more caution for transactions from high-risk countries or amounts of 10000 euros or more. Some banks decide to turn a blind eye on it and just file a report sending it to AML institutions, although they are well aware that it is easier to prevent money laundering by not dealing with these suspicious clients than to hunt down the money once they are in the banking system. In other words, banks knowingly decide to keep on relationships with suspicious clients shifting the responsibility to the authorities by filling the report. What else can banks do? They can assist in mirror trading. Mirror trading is a technique of money laundering conducted by the costumer with the bank’s complicity. Let’s put it this way, the customer deposits 10000 euros and instructs the bank to buy shares equal to this amount in a market, in the mean time they sell the same amount in another market. Since in Albania we don’t have an actual stock exchange this scheme would not be applicable in our country. Bank’s complicity makes it harder for the authorities to track down the illegal money, but they encounter other challenges as well. The activities of money laundering are growing in amounts and are also finding new and sophisticated ways so AML institutions are obligated to spend more and more, in a way that is non sustainable so they find the need to explore other solutions such as requiring collaboration between institutions in order to make operations more effective. It is also important to train highly specialized individuals in order to fight money laundering. One of the biggest challenges is the fact that the AML authorities receive numerous reports but they cannot deal with all of them due to the fact that they don’t have enough staff. Deutsche Bank has been scrutinized and surrounded by controversy in relation to its conduct leading up to the Global Financial Crisis. When the Global Financial Crisis hit, Deutsche Bank Group posted its first annual loss in over 50 years. The primary source of these losses was the Corporate & Investment Banking Division, suffering losses before taxes of €7.4bn. A $14 billion penalty was imposed on Deutsche Bank by the U.S State Department of Justice for fraudulent practices in relation to the US sub-prime mortgage market in the lead-up to the 2008 crisis. The bank admitted responsibility , which cost the federal government $386m when the mortgages defaulted.