Cyberlaundering

16 Pages 4098 Words

as for a "smurf"6 to deposit cash at a bank. Essentially, platoons of couriers assaulted the lobbies of banks throughout the United States with deposits under the $10,000 reporting limit as required under the Bank Secrecy Act.7 The result was the formation of a serious loophole under the Bank Secrecy Act, allowing couriers almost limitless variables in depositing dirty money such as the number of banks, the number of branch offices, the number of teller stations at one branch office, the number of instruments purchased, the number of accounts at each bank, and the number of persons depositing the money.
In 1986, the Money Laundering Control Act (the Act)8 attempted to close the loopholes in the prior law that allowed for the structuring of transactions to flourish.9 In criminalizing the structuring of transactions to avoid reporting requirements, Congress attempted to "hit criminals right where they bruise: in the pocketbook."10 Under the Act, the filing of a currency transaction report (CTR)11 is required even if a bank employee "has knowledge" of any attempted structuring.12 Thus, it appeared as if the ability to launder the profits from illegal activity would be severely hampered.
As the physical world of money laundering began to erode, the tendency to use electronic transfers to avoid detection gained a loyal following. Electronic transfers of funds are known as wire transfers.13 Wire transfer systems allow criminal organizations, as well as legitimate businesses and individual banking customers, to enjoy a swift and nearly risk free conduit for moving money between countries.14 Considering that an estimated 700,000 wire transfers occur daily in the United States, moving well over $2 trillion, illicit wire transfers are easily hidden.15 Federal agencies estimate that as much as $300 billion is laundered annually, worldwide.16 As the mountain of stored, computerized information regarding these transfers reaches for the virtual sta...