COMPLIANCE OFFICERS PLEASE NOTE; AMERICANS HAVE APPARENTLY REACQUIRED THEIR TASTE FOR COCAINE OF LATE, AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEAN$

Major media, including the Wall Street Journal, has been repeatedly warning that American consumers seem to have rediscovered their affinity for cocaine, as they are reporting that their consumption of the drug has increased more than 150% in recent years. The increase has more notably occurred in the Western states, and has been linked to the increased focus on countering the Fentanyl problem rural America has been cursed with. The assessment is that counterdrug enforcement regarding cocaine has been neglected by the present administration, since it came into office in January.

As a former career money launderer of cocaine profits, during the 1980s, and an anti-money laundering consultant to law enforcement in the 90s, I know from personal experience that a large percentage of the proceeds from coke sales is moved through U.S. financial institutions, and a portion is laundered domestically, before being invested in cash-producing investments in the legitimate domestic economy.

Therefore, educate your frontline compliance and teller staff, who were not on duty during the "Miami Vice" era of domestic money laundering, to recognize legacy laundering tradecraft, those original methods and techniques that were in regular use back then. Think cash-intensive businesses; bogus consultancies; real estate with two sets of closing statements, and all those cleverly employed tricks of the laundryman's trade, which thrived before the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986. Do you know what they are?

Be alert, ladies and gentlemen of the compliance community, as the individuals who must now launder their clients' increased cocaine profits are on the job; catch them by identifying those legacy methods.