Banks and the Bomb is the first book of its kind to analyze how global financial institutions act as inadvertent facilitators of weapons of mass destruction proliferation. Every day, banks around the world process millions of wire transfers for industrial goods—vacuum pumps, frequency converters, and centrifuge components. Most transfers are entirely legitimate. Some are not. Proliferators cannot buy a ready-made nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon on the commercial market, but they can buy dual-use goods and technologies to build one, and they use global banks to make the payments. This is proliferation financing—and no bank is immune from exploitation by illicit actors. Drawing on numerous case studies, interviews with government officials and financial sector professionals, and the authors' work with governments and banks across the globe, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the challenge of proliferation financing and insights into what financial institutions and governments can do to reduce the risks. This is a vital, groundbreaking book for students, scholars, financial sector professionals, and policymakers.
