‘99.9% of all money laundering crimes go unprosecuted,’ says lawyer

One of the former prosecutors on the Silk Road case has revealed the shocking statistic that 99% of all money laundering crimes go unprosecuted.

Kathryn Huan, a general partner at Andreesen Horowitz, believes that the current financial system is inadequate at tackling money laundering.

She was also the Department of Justice’s prosecutor on the Silk Road case which saw the dark web marketplace collapse.

Cryptocurrency naysayers are adamant that it will be used for nefarious purposes, yet fail to realise that the fiat system is no better in this regard, she suggests in an interview with Kyle Bass for Real Vision Classics.

“Our current system is doing a pretty terrible job of it – 99.9% of all money laundering crimes go unprosecuted,” she slammed.

“I testified before the US Senate about this and the person who cited this statistic – other than Senator Chuck Grasley – was the ex-Treasury official.

She also revealed how the financial services industry was currently spending roughly $20 billion a year on ‘Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and ‘Know-Your-Customer‘ (KYC) checks.

Afterwards, she expresses her belief on how present requirements were not clamping down hard enough on financial crime.

Speaking on switching AML checks to a decentralised system she quipped “we’re kidding ourselves if we think that’s going to change too much”.

Huan’s comments certainly undermine criticisms surrounding the illicit use cases associated with cryptocurrency.

While it could be used to launder money, it seems abundantly clear that current systems have yet to produce an efficient deterrent to counter themselves.

Interested in reading more stories relating to money laundering? Discover more about Craig Wright brandishing CZ as a “lowlife money laundering piece of scum”.