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To take advantage of the benefits of these countries, there are numerous vehicles that can be used. These include:

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Before we address how these vehicles are used, we should first look at how drug violators transfer their illicit gains to these havens. The first step in this process is the changing of small bills into large bills. This is called "refining" money. This is tedious work that includes visiting a number of different banks in order not to arouse suspicion.

The secret of transferring large amounts of drug money from the United States to a haven country, is to persuade a financial institution with access to international transfer facilities to accept an uncommonly large amount of cash. There are several commonly known procedures to transfer such large amounts of monies:

o Money Exchange: Money exchanges have been known to accept large amounts of cash. Using a dummy corporation, a violator will notify the foreign lawyer who represents his interests that he will be making a large cash transfer to his corporation's foreign account through a particular New York money exchange and ask that the bank please facilitate the exchange. Because of the bank's substantial legitimate dealings with the money exchange, the money exchange will be alert and will accept the cash from the courier and transfer it to the corporation's foreign account. This is done as a professional courtesy.

o Brokerage Houses: Brokerage houses have also been known to accept large quantities of cash if they believe they are really executing orders for an important foreign bank or for a respected customer of a foreign bank. A foreign bank, unknowingly representing a drug violator, places an order with a broker for large sums in securities advising that their courier will pay for them on the settlement date. The courier arrives and pays the broker with cash or bank check.

If the broker is suspicious, the courier can go to a money exchange and
exchange the U.S. currency for foreign currenty, e.g., Swiss Francs or
go to a money exchange or bank and change it into a cashier's check.
Sometimes the above ruse is unnecessary. The broker will accept cash if
a bank notifies the broker in advance and approves the transaction.
Later the bank official will pick up the cash.

o Lateral Transfer: Lateral transfer have been used by drug dealers in America as a convienent way to payoff their suppliers without physically exchanging money. Using lateral transfers, a heroin dealer simply instructs his bank to transfer payment to the bank of his supplier.

Lateral transfers became popular during the Viet Nam War. The black
market exchange of U.S. dollars for Vietnamese Piasters was more
profitable than the official rate. A serviceman in Viet Nam would
notify his American bank in the United States to transfer funds from
his account to the American bank account owned by the person having the
Piasters in Viet Nam. Once the transfer was effected, the serviceman
would be given Piasters at the black market rate.

Hand Payments: Aside from utilizing financial institutions with international transfer facilities, a drug violator can have his monies hand carried to a foreign country.

The best method of smuggling to these countries is to have a courier take the money their in either a suitcase or a moneybelt. This would leave no paper trail.

There are several routes couriers can take when smuggling currency. Couriers can travel to Canada; the offshore Caribbean Islands, or the numerous European countries for deposit in branches of foreign banks. Money couriers are lawyers or businessmen who ordinarily make trips to foreign countries. They smuggle dirty money for themselves, friends and business associates.

Other couriers go by the title of "bank agents". In some cases, these agents are salaried employees of Swiss and Caribbean banks. Swiss bank agents are most prevalent in South America where they open Swiss bank accounts and smuggle money to these accounts for affluent Latin Americans. Laws in most South American countries forbid sending money out of the country.

o Money Orders: Another method of smuggling dirty money is to buy a number of money orders from an American bank, leaving blank the name of the payee. The money orders are then made out to a foreign bank and sent through the mail or carried by a courier.

REPATRIATION OF MONEY

After dirty money has reached a Swiss/offshore bank or dummy corporation either by cable, courier or corporate transfer, only part of the laundering cycle has been completed. To complete the cycle, it is necessary to repatriate the once dirty money in such a way that it appears to have been earned from a legitimate transaction.

Repatriating money refers to transferring money back to its owner's country of origin. Repatriating money is often done in the guise of a bank loan. Thus, the "loan-back" technique.

o Illustration of the Loan-Back Technique: A New Jersey gambler has $500,000 in bookmaking profits hidden in a Swiss account. In order to repatriate this dirty money, he decides to invest it in a chain of Long Island car washes costing $1 million. To finance his purchase, he makes a down payment of $50,000 in "clean money", which has been declared to the government and properly taxed. He then takes out a legitimate $450,000 first mortgage from a bank and "borrows" the remaining $500,000 from his Swiss bank. Thie $500,000 is in fact, money from his own Swiss bank disguised as a legitimate loan.

In order to perpetuate this loan charade, the gambler repays the $500,000 as if it were a legitimate loan. This repayment includes interest charges. In this way the loan-back not only allows a dirty money man to repatriate his money, but also gives him the chance to pay himself interest and deduct these payments from his taxes. This slick "double play" has made the loan-back the most popular method of bringing dirty money back to the United States.

The fact that he must repay the principal on the loan does not bother the criminal, since, he chooses, as soon as these payments have been made he can immediately relend the money to himself. Through a continuous use of of the loan-back technique, a criminal can recycle his money between the United States and Switzerland on a perpetually moving conveyor belt that connects the criminal, his Swiss bank and dummy foreign companies together with his legitimate American business enterprises.

The cooperation of the Swiss bank is not needed to complete the loan-back. In fact, in only a few instances is the money tendered directly from the bank to the criminal. Usually it travels through a number of layers of insulation, and the Swiss and other financial institutions involved may not even suspect that the loan is not legitimate.

To provide more insulation, the foreign representative or the courier who
originally brought the money to Switzerland often transfers the money
from the Swiss bank account or another account owned by a dummy foreign
company "headquartered" in Liechtenstein, Panama, the Bahamas, etc. The
foreign company then tenders the "loan" to an American lawyer or a dummy
company in the United States which is associated with the American
criminal. The apparent legitimacy of this loan is reinforced by the fact
that the transfer facilities of the large international banks are used
to move funds between Europe and the United States.

Direct Investments: Instead of using a loan-back to penetrate legitimate business, a criminal may make his investment directly, using one of his dummy foreign companies as a front. Legitimate businesses sometimes agree to accept a new criminal "partner". This partner then makes his new investment with dirty money funneled through one of his foreign companies.

A legitimate business bought with money that has been laundered abroad can in time be used as a domestic "laundromat". Any kind of business in which it is possible to fake an increase in the volume of business on paper and then feed dirty money into the receipts can qualify as a domestic laundromat. Such businesses include car washes, bars, lounges, motels, vending machines, etc.

Profits from successful foreign business or stock/real estate transactions: Another method used to repatriate dirty money from a Swiss or other foreign bank, is for a criminal to disguise his dirty money as a profit he claims to have earned from a successful foreign business or stock/real estate transaction. He then pays legal tax (approximately 25%) and has legitimized 75% of his funds which he can use or enjoy.

Purchasing your own property: Using money held in a foreign bank account to secretly buy your own property is another favorite laundering technique. By transferring funds to your secret dummy Liechtenstein trust, the criminal can buy his own business (car wash) and repatriate even more money to the United States.

o Double Invoicing: Double invoicing (over pricing) is a good technique for laundering money. A U.S. company orders (buys) from its foreign subsidiary merchandise at an artifically high price. The difference between this price and the real price is deposited by the subsidiary in a special Swiss or Caribbean account. The reverse is the U.S. company selling merchandise at artificially low prices. The difference between the two is again deposited in a secret foreign account maintained by the U.S. company.

Example: A Dutch company obtains from a British company, an agreement to pay for goods received against two invoices for each shipment. One invoice, the smaller of the two, is paid directly to the Dutch firm in the normal way against shipment or sight of goods. The second invoice usually representing the difference between the smaller invoice and the real price of the goods, calls for payment directly to the bank account of the Dutch company in Switzerland.

Using the above scheme, a criminal can form a corporation and double invoice non-existent products. The cost for incorporation is only a few hundred dollars.

Fiduciary Accounts:

A fiduciary account separates your name from the account. The fiduciary deposit occurs through your authorizing your Swiss bank to place a given. deposit for a specified period of time with another bank outside Switzerland. The funds are placed in the name of the Swiss bank but at your risk, the fiduciary connection. The deposits are not subject to the 35% withholding rate or negative interest, as the interest is earned outside Switzerland.

A fiduciary in Italy is a cross between a trust agreement and an investment company. It is intended to be used as a vehicle for general investment by groups of individuals or families with sizeable sources of funds within the country. A fidciaria can legally invest or hold funds outside of Italy where an individual cannot. It can also bring funds in the country.

Customs in Chiasso, Switzerland, found an envelope in a suitcase on a train going Milan-Zurich. This envelope revealed that two brothers (owners of a pasta empire in Italy) held bank accounts outside Italy and mostly in Switzerland with almost $50 million there. These brothers circumvented Italy's tight currency outflow control through the use of fiduciaria.

o Omnibus Accounts:

Swiss and other foreign banks maintain "omnibus accounts" at American brokerage houses. An "omnibus account" is a variety, general, all purpose account of a Swiss/foreign bank. Through the use of a Swiss bank's omnibus account, a criminal with a bank account at that Swiss/ foreign bank would instruct his bank to purchase/sell certain securities. The Swiss bank would telex or call the brokerage house with which it maintains an omnibus account and instruct the broker to purchase these securities. The broker's records would show the bank as the purchaser/ seller and not the criminal.

o Corporation and Trusts:

The establishment of corporations and trusts in tax-haven countries is a popular method used to launder money by criminals. Some of the more popular methods are:

1.

2.

International Finance Subsidiary: This is usually an arm of
a large multi-national corporation and arranges debt financing
abroad.

Banks and Trust Companies: These companies are able to pay
tax-free deposit interest, their direct participation in in-
ternational corporate financing and their use to establish
trusts and companies in the haven for external customers.

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