The 20th Century was characterized by a number of structural changes in the World economy. These changes were spawned by exponential technological breakthroughs in telecommunication and information sciences .In the last decade of that century, Globalization became the buzz-word: bringing together nation states, as it were, in what might be called a “global village” .The main pillars of this process were Liberalization and Deregulation of national economies. These developments combined, created both opportunities and risks for the society .The powers of political authorities were now becoming limited as new non-state actors, both legitimate and illegitimate, emerged in the global arena .Among those changes witnessed in the society was the proliferation of organised criminal groups, operating across national boundaries and sovereignties ,perpetrating various heineous crimes of different patterns and manifestations .
The phenomenon of money laundering is an aspect of organized crime .It is a derivative crime; meaning it’s predicate on other criminal endeavours. Some experts estimate that the global crime economy constitutes about US$100 billion; while the British Intelligence estimated that the total amount being laundered annually is about US$500 billion..The illicit drug trade alone is estimated to generate about US$300 billion of which a significant part would require laundering1 . By far , organized crime poses one of the greatest challenges to the stability and prosperity of the global system short of military warfare.
This paper is therefore aimed at explaining the nature, patterns, history, stages and possible intermediaries of money laundering; and to examine the negative impact of money laundering on the society as well as the current international initiatives against it with a view to assessing the future potentials for an effective global
