WHO SAYS BULK CASH SMUGGLING IS DEAD?

Readers who have recently finished "The Laundry Man" often ask whether Bulk Cash Smuggling, which was one of the methods I employed during my decade as a career money launderer during the 'Miami Vice' era of the 1980s, survives. Kindly note that, as evidenced from the quote below, taken from a current issue of the Financial Times, that the technique us still in regular use. It allows there laundryman to artfully evade the regulators and law enforcement agencies. Of course, it does usually violate the reporting requirements that most nations have regarding there movement of over USD$10,000 over national borders, but that's only relevant if the shipment is interdicted whilst in transit.

On Wednesday, a barrister representing the SFO said Glencore had paid a Nigerian middleman more than €4mn disguised as service fees. Money was transported, often by private jet, from Nigeria to Cameroon to a Glencore oil trader who used it to pay bribes, according to the SFO, with $13.7mn paid to officials in Cameroon’s national oil and gas company and the country’s national refinery in the three years to March 1 2015. The court heard Glencore had used a Swiss “cash desk” to dispense money to be used for bribery. The trader on the west Africa desk withdrew €6.3mn in cash from this desk through a series of transactions listed as “office expenses”. (taken from FT)