Albania’s Infant Money Laundering Legislation Turns One

Attempts to introduce Western models of capitalism to Central and Eastern Europe have shown that reform of transition economies is frequently impeded by cultural legacies, economic stagnation, organized crime, and corruption. Each of these factors has slowed reform in the Republic of Albania, and facilitated capital flight and tax evasion by indigenous criminal groups that gained control of much of the country in the mid-1990s. In an effort to quell capital flight, and respond to the intense international criticism that began with the collapse of several major pyramid schemes of the mid-nineties, Albania passed comprehensive money-laundering legislation in May 2000, but like other financial reform efforts initiated in Central and Eastern Europe, the money-laundering legislation is not immune to the countervailing forces of organized crime and corruption…[more]