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When criminals split large amounts of money into smaller chunks to avoid their transactions appearing suspicious. By enlisting the help of associates/friends/relatives, at times, in multiple countries, criminals can deposit small amounts into their accounts and have them wired to their own account.
What is 'smurfing'?
Based on the book "Secrecy World" about the panama Papers Scandal, this 2019 film contains Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas.
What is 'The Laundromat'?
In 2012, this global bank agreed to pay a 1.9B fine to regulators in the USA for serving as a middle man for Mexican drug cartels, and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement pointing to a lack of adequate control processes for their ML program. Many have scrutinized this lax ruling as another example of how the bank's size as 'too big to fail,' offers various standards for various FIs.
What is "HSBC Holdings"
If you receive an amount of $10,000 or more in cash in the course of a single transaction, each such transaction must be sent to FINTRAC separately, in its own report.
What is 'LCTR, large cash transaction report'?
Wash trading is done to paint a false picture about a specific type of crypto 'thing'. In this type of trading, the seller is the same person as the buyer. The perpetrators send funds within wallets they control to carry out the transaction and fool the public into believing that there is a high demand for that asset. Melania trump has been accused of wash trading with this in Feb 2022.
What is 'NFT'?
This Highland in the USA (between Missouri, Arkansas mainly) is the name of a popular TV show about drug cartels/money laundering, which aired it's series finale in 2022.
What is 'The Ozarks'?
This fraud plan is named after the individual who first started it in the 1920s. It involved this individual convincing investors that he could deliver returns based on fluctuating currency valuations, through purchase of international postal coupons. The commitment of return was promised to be 50% profit within 45 days, and 100% within 90 days. This individual used later investments to pay off earlier funders.
What is a 'Ponzi Scheme'?
Canada is part of this inter-governmental body where we are compliant with 11 Recommendations, and largely compliant with 23 of them - out of 40 Recommendations.
What is 'FATF, Financial Action Task Force'?
A popular obfuscation service used by crypto criminals, where this service takes in crypto from multiple users, blends them all together, and sends each user an amount equivalent to what they put in so that the trace is completely relinquished.
What is a 'mixer'?
This popular show about the Colombian Drug Cartels in the 80's and 90's features a main character, who is played by the same actor who has had a resurgence in TV as they are also a main character in 'The Last of Us.'
Who is 'Pedro Pascal'?
In a scathing March 1 2023 letter to this company's CEO Changpeng Zhao, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) placed this company under investigation for potential sanctions evasion, money laundering and unlicensed money transmission.
What is 'Binance'?
A complex method of trade-based money laundering. Originally it was driven by Colombia's restrictive policies on currency exchange. To circumvent these policies, Colombian businesses bypassed the government levies by dealing with underground currency brokers. Drug traffickers took advantage of this method to receive funds in Colombian funds while trading for US drug dollars located in the USA.
What is BMPE; Black Market Peso Exchange?
In order for Chinese citizens to circumvent the 50K overseas funds threshold, many enter into deals with local criminal gangs, wiring cash to bank accounts of criminals within China, who then meet with at Casinos which are then transformed to CAD. Cash coming out of China is to circumvent this threshold, but it is mixed with drug money from Canadian drug traffickers.
This Internationally known Model includes: people hauling hockey bags and large wheeled bags stuffed full of $20 bills into Casinos and presenting them in exchange for Casino chips. This term was born out of Video Footage of this.
What is 'The Vancouver Model'?
This series had an episode (EP1/Season2) about Wells Fargo called 'The Wagon Wheel.' In it, former employees detail the ruthless and fraudulent practices that fuelled it's growth.
What is 'Dirty Money'
In June 2022, this European Bank - which has been in the news recently for being taken over by UBS, was convicted in their National Federal Criminal Court for failing to prevent ML by a Bulgarian Cocaine Trafficking Gang in the first criminal trial of one of its' major banks.
What is 'Credit Suisse'
What is a 'BEC, business email compromise'?
For example, an importer in British Columbia could transfer money overseas by overpaying for goods (real or fictitious) that it has “imported” from another country. The shipment of goods and the accompanying documentation provide cover for the transfer of money.
What is 'Trade Based Money Laundering'?
This Sillicon Valley Founder has recently been depicted in a 2022 TV series 'The Dropout', with Amanda Seyfriend as the main character. The show is based off of the real life story of how this celebrated Entrepreneur
and founder of Theranos; a company attempting to develop new blood testing technology. By defrauding their investors, this founder has been convicted this past year, of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.
Who is 'Elizabeth Holmes'?
Fyre Festival was a fraudulent music festival founded by con artist Billy McFarland and a rapper who has collaborated on songs with J.Lo, Ashanti, and Fat Joe. This rapper and McFarland payed more than 400 social media personalities/celebrities to promote it, scamming 26M investors.
Who is 'Ja Rule'?
The full name of FINTRAC's counterpart in the USA
What is 'FINCEN, The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network'?