September 22, 2010

http://www.csoonline.com/article/617495/money-laundering-new-trends-and-tips-for-protecting-your-business

The bad guys will always use the latest technology to launder money and avert detection. What are they using now and what should businesses look out for?

Kevin Sullivan has a philosophy that he has carried through his two-plus decades in security and law enforcement: All crimes, whether they are digital or physical, are connected at the hip. A former FBI investigator who cut his teeth on financial crimes, what he found is that typically most fraud can be traced back to some kind of organized group. This particularly holds true for money laundering.

Money laundering is the act of making illegally-obtained funds to appear to have come from a legitimate source. The criminal must figure out a way to make the cash appear legitimate so as not to alert the authorities to his real occupation and the actual source of the income.

"Money that is laundered is money that taxes would have been paid on if things were done legitimately," he said. "It's money that enables drug lords to buy new guns and new bullets to kill more people. There are a lot of bad things connected to it. People think it's just a non-violent crime. But there is actually a lot of violence that can go on to get that money. By allowing criminals to launder money, it allows them to continue what they are doing. "