Financial Crime Online

According to the Guardian, ‘ Operation Eaglewood’  led to Scotland Yard’s largest-ever simultaneous raid in February 2008. The investigation focused on money laundering and cocaine distribution. A taxi cab business was in the middle of the laundering scheme; is was used as a front store. 33 gang members were sentenced. From the information that surfaced, [...]

The police in San Salvador found two barrels full of (suspected) drug money buried 6 ft under. One of the barrels was found near a ranch in Penitente Abajo. After three (!) days of counting, the police concluded this barrel contained $9 million in $100, $50 and $20 bills. A second barrel was found nearyby, [...]

Some significant highlights from a criminal career in the cocaine business; the first time to hit the DEA ‘wanted’ list (with a $5 million price on your head) and the first time to be killed in a shootout with the Mexican army. Ignacio Coronel Villarreal, “Nacho” for friends, was the wingman of Joaquin Guzman, top dog [...]

A new U.S.-Mexico government study estimates that $19 billion to $29 billion is shipped south, then laundered through cash purchases of land, luxury hotels, cars and other high-end items. Remember the recent arrest of Cancun mayor for aiding criminal groups setting up shop in Cancun? The amount of money involved shows the (financial) power of [...]

Wells Fargo & Co’s Wachovia Bank agreed to cough up $160 million to end a criminal money laundering probe into the use of its exhange houses in Mexico by drug cartels. The government agreed to defer prosecution on a criminal charge that Wachovia did not set up an effective anti-money laundering program from 2003 to 2008. [...]

About 15 million people around the world use heroin, opium or morphine, fueling a $65 billion market, warned Antonio Maria Costa, head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. The trade is fueling terrorism and insurgencies: The Taliban raised between $450 million and $600 million in the past four years by “taxing” opium farmers [...]

On its website, ICE proudly presented the largest cash seizure in Colombia ever: “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agents along with Colombian and Mexican law enforcement officers between Sept. 9 and 18 made the largest bulk cash container seizure in Colombia and the United States – more than $41 million in U.S. currency [...]

In Mallorca (Spain) the police dug up 4.3 million euro ($6.2 million) in cash and 7.5 kilograms of jewelry in Palma de Mallorca. Members of a local drug ring buried the loot, under a doghouse annex garage. The police mentioned that they have been preparing for the bust for a couple of months. The police [...]

CNN ran an interesting story on the rise of drug trafficking in Africa and reported that Colombian and Mexican drug cartels have jumped the Atlantic Ocean and expanded into West Africa, working closely with local criminal gangs to carve out a staging area for an assault on the lucrative European market. While the European market [...]

The police in the Netherlands seized 4.6 million euro ($ 6.5 million) stuffed in a bag. While searching the suspects’ houses the police retrieved another 100k and a firearm. According to the police the cash belonged to a criminal organization that grows marijuana on a large scale in the Netherlands. Most of the suspects involved [...]