[paulusthe]

That's overly simplistic. AML laws serve more purposes than simply catching money laundering, they discourage the underlying crime in the first place. Discouraging that can't be counted, yet you are saying is "AML doesn't catch anything!" But you can't prove the negative.

AML also serves to buttress public support in the financial system because the public interest is being served, and at least recently, without AML the housing crisis would be significantly worse.

"Let the criminals put their cash wherever they want, because it's too expensive to stop them" Isn't exactly the rallying cry you think it is