Money Laundering in a Developing Country and a Developed One: Iran Versus the UK

Abstract

Purpose – This paper compares and contrasts the main reasons of money laundering, sources of dirty funds, and destinations of laundered monies in Iran and the UK. It also aims to study the accounting profession related part of Iran’s and the UK’s Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regime. Design/Methodology/Approach– The questionnaires were sent to Iranian certified public accountants and the UK’s chartered accountants who are qualified at the beginning of 2020. Findings – The findings show that the government and politicians are the primary reason and also source of money laundering in Iran. However, the main sources of dirty funds in the UK are companies and drugs money. The main destinations of laundered funds in Iran and the UK are foreign countries, real estate markets, and luxury goods markets. We also concluded that while there is a proper AML regime for accounting professionals in the UK, there is not such an AML regime for Iranian accounting professionals. Originality/value – In this research, we have compared and contrasted money laundering environment and AML regime of a high-risk country with a low-risk country. This study can be helpful to diagnose money laundering in Iran in order to improve its AML regime.