The pandemic has changed how criminals hide their cash:
The pandemic has forced criminal gangs to come up with new ways to move money around. In turn, this has upped the stakes for anti-money laundering (AML) teams tasked with detecting suspicious financial transactions and following them back to their source.
Key to their strategies are new AI tools. While some larger, older financial institutions have been slower to adapt their rule-based legacy systems, smaller, newer firms are using machine learning to look out for anomalous activity, whatever it might be.
It is hard to assess the exact scale of the problem. But according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, between 2% and 5% of global GDP—between $800 billion and $2 trillion at current figures—is laundered every year. Most goes undetected. Estimates suggest that only around 1% of profits earned by criminals is seized.
And that was before covid-19 hit. Fraud is up, with fears around covid-19 creating a lucrative market for counterfeit protective gear or medication. More people spending time online also creates a bigger pool for phishing attacks and other scams. And, of course, drugs are still being bought and sold.
Lockdown made it harder to hide the proceeds—at least to begin with. The problem for criminals is that many of the best businesses for laundering money were also those hit hardest by the pandemic. Small shops, restaurants, bars, and clubs are favored because they are cash-heavy, which makes it easier to mix up ill-gotten gains with legal income.
With bank branches closed, it has been harder to make large cash deposits. Wire transfer services like Western Union—which usually allow anyone to walk in off the street and send money overseas—shut their premises, too.
But criminals are nothing if not opportunistic. As the normal channels for money laundering closed, new ones opened up. Vast sums of money have started flowing into small businesses again thanks to government bailouts. This creates a flurry of financial activity that provides cover for money laundering.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @08:40AM (3 children)
I know of at least one small company (under 10 people) that received Payroll Protection Plan money to keep their people employed. However, their business wasn't interrupted to any great extent, so they appear to have received assistance under false pretenses.
Not quite the same as money laundering (it's an above-board business in the construction sector), but pisses me off none the less.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday August 12 2020, @08:51AM (2 children)
Why? Not like the US govt has any intention to ever cover the budget deficit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @12:57PM (1 child)
It's called fraud. Fortunately, this kind of bullshit can be prosecuted in the future if there is sufficient will. All you have to do is look at the financial data of these companies (which they are required to provide as part of their tax filings). Claiming this aid while retaining virtually all of your regular business is then easily found out in due course.
Your comment is akin of asking why cheating on taxes is bad....
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday August 12 2020, @01:10PM
Assuming it were illegal in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @09:28AM
Some good has come from the deaths of 200,000 Americans! Probably more work for Runaway, out at the Moonshine setup, as long as he can outrun the revenooers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Wednesday August 12 2020, @09:46AM (1 child)
... is to buy yourself one or more politicians. The sorts of criminals who wear expensive suits and never serve any jail time have been doing that for decades.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @02:23PM
Careful now. If the AI machine gets too smart it will get "tuned" to avoid seeing the wrong kind of criminals.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Bot on Wednesday August 12 2020, @10:08AM
The system has a branch dealing with enforcing laws against the enemies, and another breaking laws against the enemies. The latter is called organized crime, as they are intent in sucking all money, just like governments do . It is a good canary. When it definitely disappears the beast has gained full control.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Wednesday August 12 2020, @02:38PM
Then you have to move on and make everything once removed a crime - money laundering, drug paraphernalia, victimless crime...
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229 [amazon.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @04:24PM (3 children)
Closed out their accounts not long after the 'pandemic' began, once they realized what-a-bunch-of-bullshit the 'pandemic' is. Think about it for a minute: grocery stores, hardware stores, mini-marts, furniture stores, etc. are open, so why not the lobbies of financial institutions? In my neck-of-the-woods, it's usually faster & easier to walk into the lobby to conduct business, than it is to go through the drive-thru. Also, being a pedestrian without a vehicle, I have no access to any financial institution in my area. So, why not keep the lobbies open, & apply the same mask-wearing & social-distancing rules as grocery stores? It's complete & total unadulterated bullshit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @06:30PM (2 children)
Two weeks to flatten the curve! Think of your parents! We just DoNt KnOw!!1! Testing! Monorail!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @07:21PM (1 child)
And it is people like you that have us on a higher rate-of-death than the Civil War (the deadliest war for Americans in history).
150k in 6 months, vs 600k in 4 years.
I think the war on Covid is going to take the crown, at least if we keep letting people that hate science run things.
I heard Faucci make the claim that 2 months of everyone wearing masks is all it would take to curb this thing, but too many balk at the minor imposition. What is a few thousand deaths a week as long as I don't have to cover my face.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @10:29PM
Yeah, it's our fault for the drought continuing, we were the ones who didn't join in the rain dance.