FATF Pushes for Stronger Cross-Border Cooperation with New Anti-Money Laundering Handbooks

The release of the International Co-operation on Money Laundering Detection, Investigation, and Prosecution Handbook represents a coordinated effort by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the Egmont Group, INTERPOL, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to close long-standing gaps in the global response to financial crime.

Despite decades of regulatory progress, enforcement against money laundering remains one of the weakest links in the fight against illicit finance. Criminal groups continue to exploit the sluggishness of traditional legal processes, moving assets across borders well before investigators can intervene.

The newly published handbook directly addresses these weaknesses by encouraging the use of informal cooperation to complement formal procedures. The aim is to ensure that intelligence can move rapidly, enabling authorities to act before criminal proceeds disappear into complex layering structures. The initiative is accompanied by specialized brochures tailored to prosecutors, law enforcement agencies (LEAs), and financial intelligence units (FIUs), reflecting the distinct but interconnected responsibilities each holds in the AML chain.

Strengthening Cross-Border Cooperation

Money laundering is rarely confined within national borders. Illicit wealth generated from crimes such as drug trafficking, corruption, tax evasion, and wildlife smuggling is typically funneled through multiple jurisdictions in an attempt to obscure its origins. While Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) treaties remain essential for producing admissible evidence, they are often criticized for delays that can stretch into weeks or months.

The FATF initiative provides an alternative: intelligence-led, secure, and rapid collaboration designed to disrupt schemes in real time. Rather than waiting for MLA channels to grind forward, investigators are urged to employ encrypted platforms, fast-response protocols, and joint analysis with their foreign counterparts.

The benefits of such an approach are already visible. In Europe, FIUs from Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands unraveled a €95 million laundering operation by quickly pooling intelligence.

In Australia, Operation AVARUS-X dismantled billions in illicit transfers made through money service businesses, with assistance from U.S. partners. U.S.-Indian cooperation resulted in the freezing of USD 150 million in cryptocurrency tied to narcotics trafficking, while INTERPOL-led coordination secured convictions in a rhino horn smuggling case. Each example illustrates how speed and collaboration magnify the impact of AML measures.

Practical Guidance for Daily Operations

To ensure these principles are embedded into practice, FATF and its partners released three targeted brochures:

• For prosecutors: The guide emphasizes that “informal exchanges can sharpen MLA requests.” By engaging proactively with FIUs or LEAs, prosecutors can access intelligence faster and formulate more precise requests. The brochure highlights best practices including narrowly defined submissions, structured feedback mechanisms, and the use of “diagonal cooperation.” It further stresses the importance of secure communication channels and legal awareness to maintain both confidentiality and efficiency.

• For law enforcement agencies: LEAs are instructed to maintain operational agility. The guidance underlines the value of early outreach to foreign partners, with recommended tools such as INTERPOL’s I-24/7 system, the Egmont Secure Web, and Europol’s SIENA platform. The brochure encourages the sharing of partial intelligence when full responses are delayed, to prevent investigations from stalling. It also promotes joint investigative teams and operational task forces as key mechanisms for strengthening prosecutions.

• For financial intelligence units: FIUs are described as central to the global intelligence-sharing network. Their brochure highlights their ability to act pre-emptively by disseminating suspicious transaction intelligence and data on emerging risks. Advanced technologies such as homomorphic encryption, federated learning, and blockchain-based audit trails are recommended to safeguard confidentiality while expanding cooperation. Reciprocity is presented as essential: FIUs must be both providers and requesters of intelligence under shared standards.

Together, the three guides form what FATF calls a triangular system of cooperation—ensuring that intelligence is not siloed but strategically exchanged to dismantle laundering networks.

Remaining Barriers and Future Directions

Despite the advances, significant obstacles persist. In some jurisdictions, legal restrictions prevent prosecutors from engaging directly, forcing them to rely on “diagonal” cooperation routed through FIUs or LEAs. Cultural hesitancy and institutional inertia also remain, with some agencies reluctant to share without guaranteed reciprocity. Trust continues to be the bedrock of informal cooperation, and without it, even the best-designed systems are ineffective.

Technology offers promising solutions. Secure portals, encrypted messaging, and AI-driven network analysis are enabling authorities to uncover hidden connections across massive datasets without breaching privacy. Privacy-enhancing technologies, including secure multi-party computation and homomorphic encryption, are increasingly vital to balance transparency with confidentiality.

Equally important are trust-building measures. Regular training, participation in international forums, and relationship-building between agencies all help foster confidence. As FATF stresses, effective cooperation depends not only on secure systems but also on knowing one’s counterparts, understanding their legal capabilities, and maintaining open lines of communication.

Looking ahead, the 2026 UN Crime Congress in the UAE is set to serve as a key milestone, giving member states an opportunity to showcase results achieved through this framework and recommit to dismantling the infrastructure of financial crime. Whether assessed by asset recovery, conviction rates, or the prevention of systemic risks, the real test will be how deeply these informal practices become integrated into the day-to-day work of FIUs, LEAs, and prosecutors.

Toward a Stronger Cooperative Framework

The FATF-led initiative signals a turning point in global AML enforcement. It does not replace formal procedures, but it acknowledges that agility and intelligence-led responses are indispensable in today’s financial landscape. By embracing informal cooperation as part of routine practice, authorities gain the ability to anticipate criminal moves, accelerate investigations, and recover illicit assets before they vanish.

Ultimately, the message is clear: “stronger cooperation, faster intelligence exchange, and trust-based networks are no longer optional but essential pillars of AML enforcement.” If adopted widely, these handbooks could transform fragmented national systems into a synchronized global response, leaving fewer havens for illicit finance to thrive. 

By fLEXI tEAM