From the mule’s mouth
What better way to understand how criminals work than to have a honest chat with them? Small problem; not a lot of people with that shady profession will share intimate details on how they run their businesses. Every now and then we hear it from the horse’s mouth, whether it is through an interview, confession, an (auto)biography, an informer or other sources.
BBC World Radio had an open and honest interview with Jaime Beltram. Jaime was a money mule and drug smuggler for Mexican cartels. His story probably represents a lot of Mexicans struggling for a living for their families. He started as an artist but could not really make ends meet (or should I say sustain a lifestyle one step up). He earned $50 a month. When he got connected to some people related to the drug cartels he started doing ‘administrative and financial’ stuff (soft words for money laundering) and beefed up his income to $1,000 a month. He never touched drugs but was a money man. He speaks about the risk of smuggling drugs, and is not sure whether smuggling cash is any safer. Some criminals specialize in robbing other criminals. And a pile of cash is probably the most rewarding loot. Jaima handled around $1.5 million each time (cartels obviously do not put all their eggs in one basket).
A normal day in his life was to take the money to several bureaux de change (casa di cambio), to change it to larger denominations or currencies. He was paid 1% for his services. Jaime mentioned that people think the profits for smuggling drugs are higher, but he feels that is a myth. Aside from changing money he also smuggled cash as a money mule.
Jaime used to take money to Bogota and Lima, to smart offices in corporate buildings: “I would go to a normal hotel, everybody wore suits, you never saw anyone armed, nor any of the other stereotypical trappings associated with drug trafficking. I think the man who owned the money was an administrator of some enterprise and he also had this as an illegal enterprise. At the end of the day, you do business and you sell. I got stopped at the airport in Mexico City and I had US$400,000 on me. The narcos got in touch with a friend of mine, they said there wouldn’t be a problem, they would pay for lawyers etc, … not because of me obviously, but to recover the money.
Jaime served 5 yeards in prison and is now ‘free of financial crime’.
If you like to read about financial crime experts (as in: professionals on the other side of the fence) browse through the ‘confession of a money launder’ series on worldcheck; especially the earlier posts are interesting reads.
Let us know if you come across great stories from real ‘financial crime’ life or read interesting books and websites. We will share them on this site and the upcoming ’links’ page.
http://www.world-check.com/confessions/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2008/11/081029_narcolife.shtml
