Every day, an unknown number of elephant tusks, rhino horn, pangolin scales and other wildlife products – alive and dead – cross the oceans in container ships and cargo flights for use in traditional medicine, crafts and the illegal pet trade. Rare trees are felled in ancient forests and shipped out under false certificates.

They leave behind the butchered carcasses of the last remaining animals of many species, scarred and emptied landscapes, legal livelihoods undermined by corruption and criminal activity, and communities ravaged by organised crime networks.

Following the inaugural OECD Trust in Business Forum that took place in Paris on 1-2 October 2019, we are pleased to announce that Gemma Aiolfi, Head of Compliance, Corporate Governance and Collective Action, has become an official member of the Trust in Business Network (TriBuNe), the advisory board of the OECD’s Trust in Business initiative.

Pakistan has jumped up the Basel AML Index, the Basel Institute’s independent, data-based index of the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) around the world. The country’s risk score rose from 6.45 to 7.66 out of 10, where 10 equals the highest assessed risk of ML/TF.

We are pleased to once again confirm our commitment to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and its Ten Principles and submit our third biannual Communication on Engagement.

Child labour. Forced evictions. Confiscation of migrant-worker identity documents. Crackdowns by security forces on peaceful assemblies. Serious illness resulting from corporate pollution.

These are all examples of human rights abuses that might arise in business operations or supply chains, knowingly or unknowingly, in a company’s home country or abroad.

In 2019, Estonia achieved the lowest risk score out of the 125 countries in the Public Edition of the Basel AML Index, 2.68 out of 10. In fact, Estonia has consistently been among the top performers since 2012, when the Basel AML index was first calculated.

Money laundering risks in Malta have been in the headlines recently.

During his former position as Compliance Operations Manager at LafargeHolcim, compliance and communications professional Kyle Lewis worked closely with the Basel Institute on developing a new open-source search tool to help compliance officers spot and analyse links between individuals, organisations and criminal activities. He kindly provided this testimonial for the Basel Institute's Annual Report 2018.

There are still a few spaces available on a two-day FinTech AML Compliance course on cryptocurrencies and money laundering. The course is delivered by the Basel Institute in partnership with Swiss law firm MME and will take place on 10–11 December at MME's offices in Zurich, Switzerland.

The Basel Institute is collaborating with Nestor Advisors on a project to advise on and provide support for the improvement of the compliance management system of the Société Tunisienne de l’Electricité et du Gaz (STEG), Tunisia’s state-owned gas and electricity production and distribution company.