BANKING SECRECY HIGHLY VALUED BY THE LAUNDERERS

The simplest way for a drug dealer to launder money is to walk into a bank
or other financial institution with a suitcase full of cash and lodge it.
However, this is also the easiest way to get caught, even if the dealer has
fake ID.

Banks are not allowed to take large sums of cash from anyone unknown to
them without at least two sets of identification being produced. They must
also report suspicious transactions to the relevant authorities, such as
the Garda and Revenue Commissioners.

Nevertheless, it is surprising how many people still try variations on this
theme. One high-profile Dublin criminal was arrested with £300,000 in a
suitcase at Heathrow Airport on his way to Amsterdam.

A slightly more sophisticated route is to buy property or other assets
using cash. Estate agents are not yet bound by the money-laundering
regulations and some large cash deals can still be done, but the Criminal
Assets Bureau has the powers to confiscate property.

Cash businesses such as bookmakers, pubs and clubs are other favourites,
and while some of this money will have to be declared to the tax man to
legitimise it, many feel this is a small price to pay.

At the other end of the money laundering scale is the professional.
According to Mr Nigel Morris Cotterill, a consultant with the UK
money-laundering avoidance consultancy Silkscreen Consultancy, the
professional may be a businessman, accountant, lawyer or banker who has
been bribed or blackmailed into helping the criminal.

The closer these people are to the entry point into the banking system the
more useful they are to the money launderer. However, there have been very
few cases of bankers being found to have deliberately helped criminals in
this way.

Once the money is in the system it will be sent on a global money go-round,
according to Mr Morris Cotterill. "Sometimes it will move as fast as an
electronic message, or sometimes sit in an out-of-the-way jurisdiction
until the money launderer returns it to the [paper] chase." The main point
here is to put in at least three or four steps to prevent the police from
following what is called the paper chase. The other is that there should be
no direct paper link between Ireland and the other jurisdictions.

The one thing money launderers value above all else is the availability of
banking or professional secrecy. For example, some money launderers get
their money into Liechtenstein which has no agreement with Ireland and will
not help with what it sees as revenue offences.