FIFTY YEARS IN MONEY LAUNDERING, ON ONE SIDE OR THE OTHER

Last week, I was in Washington on business, and stayed at the WATERGATE HOTEL, where more than five decades ago, a crew of former CIA agents from Miami broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. When arrested, the men had new sequentially-numbered $100 bills, and the government investigator who traced the origin of that cash called me up one day in 1974. I was a young bank lawyer, and one of the firm's clients was Republic National Bank of Miami, then the city's first and only Hispanic-owned financial institution. Former CIA Agent BERNARD BARKER had an account there, and some of President Nixon's campaign funds had come into his account from a Mexican and an American bank. We can trace the subsequent origin of the Bank Secrecy Act to fallout from the Watergate Scandal, which Nixon signed into law before his historic resignation later that year.

That was to be my first, and of course not my last, exposure to the dark world of money laundering, and the start of a long journey, from bank lawyer to career money launderer to federal Inmate to compliance officer to Financial Crime Consultant.

At the Watergate Hotel, they have preserved Room 214, where the Watergate burglars stayed, before conducting their abortive break-in. It was interesting to be there in 2024, and to reflect upon how it touched upon my life in a small way, and where the future has now found me.