Financial Crime Online

Given the estimates that half of the proceeds of drug deals by Mexican cartels in the US is smuggled back to Mexico and laundered there, we can (gu)es(s)timate that total turnover is around $ 20 bn a year. It also implies that that the rest, another $ 10 bn annually, remains in the US – [...]

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, [...]

Michelle Aiello was sentenced to 15,5 years in prison for being a mafioso and for corruption and fraud (but the last 2 obviously come with the job of being a maffioso). This week the Italian police confiscated his entire business empire with an estimated value of 800 million euro ($1 billion). In the treasure chest [...]

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 [...]

Last Thursday UNODC launched the report “The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment“. It shows how organized crime has globalized and turned into one of the world’s foremost economic and armed powers. “..Among the findings in the new report, which features a number of high-impact maps and charts that illustrate illicit flows [...]

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 [...]

Reuters reports that the mayor of the Mexican beach resort of Cancun has been arrested and charged with money laundering and drug-related crimes, making him one of the highest-ranking public officials swept up in Mexico’s crackdown on narcotics traffickers. “He was moving so much money and it just didn’t match up with the amount he [...]

A decade after its introduction, the 500 euro bill has taken a leading role in the world of dirty money. An internal Bank of Italy report warned last year about the mafia’s use of the note, saying it was just adding to the national problems of tax evasion. It is globally the money launderers favorite [...]

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. [...]