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A study of problems of documentation in Electrical Engineering is being carried out at the Vail Library of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This paper reports some of the preliminary progress. The periodicals used by electrical engineers have been studied by analysing the footnote references in six key journals for a year. A list of 308 source journals ranked in relative usefulness by the number of reference citations is given. One measure of the useful life of a paper is the time interval between publication of the paper and its citations as a reference. Fifty per cent. of the references analysed were less than 4 years old and only 5 per cent. of the total references were more than 25 years old. It is estimated that there are between 10,000 and 20,000 papers of interest to electrical engineers published each year. The total number of such papers published since 1900 is estimated to be of the order of 250,000 to 500,000. Literature searching is aided by a number of abstract and reference publications. The possibility of mechanizing a portion of a library's activities by microfilm abstract machines of the Bush ‘Rapid Selector’ type is now being studied.

Criminals have always exploited technological advances and therefore the advent of the gun, the telephone and the car created new opportunities for crime. Similarly, the increasingly widespread use of computers in society has led to computer‐related crime.

It is now generally recognised that, when investigating acquisitive crime, investigators must focus not just on obtaining evidence of the commission of the underlying crime itself, but also on what happened to the criminal proceeds. While there has been significant culture change in the UK so that investigators now focus to a greater degree on the proceeds of crime, this is usually from the perspective of tracing what remains of the proceeds so that the confiscation legislation may be applied. Even then such a focus is patchy and inconsistent and much work remains to be done to ensure that the confiscation legislation is applied in a rigorous manner.

A successful prosecution for a criminal offence requires a prosecuting authority to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant possessed the requisite mens rea, or mental state, and that at that time he also committed the actus reus of the offence, that is to say those elements of the crime apart from the mental element. One of the most common features of the actus reus of money‐laundering offences across different legal jurisdictions is that the prosecution usually has to prove, inter alia, that the property which was the subject of the transaction was, as a matter of fact, the proceeds of crime. Some variations will however occur, in that in certain jurisdictions there may be a requirement to prove that the property is the proceeds of a particular predicate offence; in others it may be sufficient to prove that the property is derived from any form of criminal conduct. This paper examines the ways in which law enforcement authorities have attempted to prove this clement of a laundering offence, and concludes by making some suggestions for alleviating the difficulties inherent in doing so. Given that there have been relatively few convictions for money laundering in the UK, many of the examples are drawn from other jurisdictions, some of which have much greater experience of such prosecutions. Occasional examples are also drawn from civil forfeiture cases. While the standard of proof in such cases is that applicable in civil proceedings rather than the criminal standard applicable in money‐laundering prosecutions, such cases may nevertheless be useful so as to see the type of evidence adduced before the courts in order to prove that property is the proceeds of crime.

It is now generally accepted that, since organised crime has become increasingly sophisticated, globalised and well resourced, law enforcement must consequently shift from its traditionally reactive approach to investigating crime to a more proactive one. While this has happened in a range of fields, particularly drug trafficking, it does not appear that money‐laundering investigations have developed in accordance with this trend, with the exception of in the USA. This paper examines the features of money‐laundering sting operations carried out in the USA, the jurisdiction with the greatest experience in conducting this type of operation, and considers the current potential for money‐laundering stings in the UK.

‘Recovering the Proceeds of Crime’, a report by the Performance and Innovation Unit of the Cabinet Office, observed that, historically, there have been very few prosecutions for money laundering in England and Wales. Indeed, in the 12‐year period 1987 to 1998, there were only 357 prosecutions. By way of comparison, in 1995 there were 2,034 prosecutions for money laundering in the USA alone. Given that it is generally accepted there is a significant amount of money laundering in the UK, why is the number of prosecutions so low? There are, arguably, four principal factors which have an impact on the prosecution rate for any criminal offence and each of the four affects the prosecution rate for money laundering.

Over the last two decades in particular, national legislatures have passed legislation aimed at ensuring that criminals do not profit from crime. This has been in response to the rise of organised crime and to the massive amounts of money being generated, in particular, by drug trafficking. It has been an attempt to destroy ‘the heart of the monster, its financial base’. This paper seeks to demonstrate that the proceeds of crime response by national governments can be perceived as evolving through a series of different models, thus allowing a comparative approach amongst different jurisdictions. Each model is composed of elements from three different strands: money‐laundering legislation, confiscation legislation and organisational structures and arrangements. These strands have each gone through their own evolution, which will now be examined.

The trafficking of women for the purpose of sexual exploitation has become a global business operated by organised crime groups and is now viewed as having reached ‘critical proportions’. Trafficking exists to meet the market demand for women who are used in brothels, the production of pornography and other aspects of the ‘sex industry’. It is nothing less than a modern day slave trade.

Organised crime groups, in particular drug traffickers, generate considerable amounts of money from their criminal activities. Over the last two decades jurisdictions around the world have therefore put in place confiscation and forfeiture legislation designed to remove such criminal gains. The Performance and Innovation Unit of the Cabinet Office, in its report entitled ‘Recovering the Proceeds of Crime’, has now recommended that a national confiscation agency (NCA) for England and Wales be established, the functions of which will include the institution of civil forfeiture proceedings and the application of the taxation legislation to the proceeds of criminal activity. If enacted, this will essentially provide a threefold strategy designed to remove criminal gains. First, where the evidence permits, the individual may be prosecuted for criminal offences and, upon conviction, a confiscation order may be sought against him. Secondly, if the evidence is not sufficient for criminal prosecution, the individual may have civil forfeiture proceedings instituted against him to deprive him of the illgotten gains, seeking to prove on the balance of probabilities that the property in his possession is, directly or indirectly, the proceeds of crime. Thirdly, if an individual can be shown to have received income during a particular period which the authorities suspect, but have insufficient evidence to prove, is the proceeds of crime, then they may apply the tax legislation to that income and raise a tax assessment against him.