During the past decade, the powers of the police and nonpolice organizations in the United Kingdom to investigate financial transactions, including money laundering, have increased enormously. Before the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, virtually the only time the government could lawfully obtain banking information was after they had charged a particular person with a crime. Even before declarations from the Council of Europe and the European Community, the English government had taken the initiative to make it a crime for bankers within the jurisdiction of the English courts not to pass on their suspicions of drug money-laundering and gave bankers immunity from lawsuits if they chose to disclose their suspicions of nondrug money laundering. The laws enacted in 1993 took effect in 1994 and extend regulation even further. The small number of prosecutions and convictions do not necessarily indicate little wrongdoing, regulatory inaction, or lack of the system's practical or symbolic success. However, they do indicate that regardless of the legal requirements, inherent difficulties exist in spotting money laundering other than the simple deposit of large volumes of cash in personal accounts and in convicting professionals and financial and other intermediaries involved in helping offenders move their money into investments of choice. Footnotes