Tough task to get money launderers

President George W. Bush has declared an economic war against terrorism

By CNN's Sheila MacVicar

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Following the money will not be easy. The big money hides in numbered bank accounts, behind shell companies and complicated corporate structures that span the globe.

It amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars associated with terrorism and organized crime, says the International Monetary Fund.

"It's a mammoth task. We don't have the resources in terms of our treasury departments, we don't have financial investigators who even think in a crafty, cunning way," says Magnus Ranstorp of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence.

There are entire countries -- from the Cook Islands to Hungary, Egypt, Nigeria and more -- where banking laws are so lax that illicit money is easily hidden, says the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering.

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Don't think the criminals don't know that, say the experts. And don't think they aren't already one step ahead of the new regulations.

"The problem with most money laundering investigations is that when they're successful, they don't end the problem, they simply displace it. But there has never been a global effort, a really serious global effort to do anything about it," says Jeffrey Robinson, author of "The Laundrymen."

Governments may be serious now, but that does not mean they will make progress quickly.

In Britain last week, the government ordered a freeze on some inactive bank accounts linked to the bin Laden organization. The government had known about those accounts for years.

Since the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Africa, the U.S. government made a concerted effort to trace and seize money linked to Osama bin Laden -- a task that has proven very difficult. Sometimes, sending money around the globe is as simple as someone getting on a plane with a suitcase full of cash.

Experts also say that terrorist organizations are increasingly funding their operations not with bank accounts but through crime.

One terrorist arrested in France, says Ranstorp, "single-handedly, through petty crime, through petty theft, through credit card scams, managed to generate $450,000 in less than a year."

What may make a difference now is real determination to punish those who fail to cooperate in the anti-terrorism fight. But there has been tough talk, even tough laws, in the past -- and very little to show for it.