On Monday, wealthy countries blocked a maneuver by developing nations for a new global treaty against money laundering, saying that the existing laws were enough to do the job, but weren’t being used.

A draft communiqué was released on the final day of a UN crime conference in Bangkok urging all nations to implement "existing instruments," upgrade national laws and boost cooperation against the growing security threat posed by cross-border crimes.

However, the Bangkok Declaration did not call for talks on proposed treaties against money laundering, cyber crime, trafficking in cultural property and the extradition of criminals.

Contributing countries, mainly Japan, the United States and European Union, opposed negotiating new treaties while the majority of UN member states were still busy ratifying existing conventions against organized crime, corruption and terrorism.

"The goal is not pieces of paper. We want to see real progress on implementation," said an official from a contributing country nation.

The meeting, which was the first to be held in Southeast Asia, consisted of nearly 3,000 officials, police and social activists who tackled issues ranging from computer crime and transnational networks of people smugglers to the links between organized crime and terrorism.

Developing nations have been pushing hard for a new UN convention against money laundering, arguing that current rules were of little use in cash-based economies.

They also noted that money launderers had shifted away from bank transactions targeted by a G8-sponsored watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), into real estate and other businesses. South African Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula said that African nations were particularly vulnerable as the crime evolved.

"This is an international matter and these criminal gangs are connected to one another. There must be an instrument that cuts across the world and deals specifically with this kind of thing," Nqakula said.

But contributing countries want to see better adherence to FATF recommendations against money laundering, which, according to some estimates, is over $600 billion worldwide.

The head of the EU delegation, Friedrich Hamburger, said negotiations on a new treaty would delay the war against financial crimes because governments would opt to wait for new guidelines.

"It's a question of legal clarity. We don't want to lose time in the fight against this crime," Hamburger said.

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