Mentioned by this "Asset Search News Roundup" are: bearer instruments such as money orders, structuring cash deposits and a possible financial fraud at one national chapter of Transparency International:     

*The article "Accused St. Louis drug ring leader pleads guilty of money laundering", explained that Mr. Julius Turrentine was suspected of using bearer negotiable instruments in the form of U.S. Postal Service money orders to conceal assets.  It reported that Mr. Turrentine pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering for using postal money orders to send from $120,000 to $200,000 through the mail.  The attached sanitized bearer share certificate from my post "Bearer Shares & An Asset Search", is an example of another type of bearer instrument which may similarly be used to hide assets.   

**Although he was sentenced to just ten months and time served, Connecticut convenience store owner Mohammad Ghouse now faces deportation back to his native Pakistan.  Based on "EHartford man gets time served for hiding cash deposits", Mr. Ghouse had structured over $578,000 through 91 cash deposits at Webster Bank between Feb. 1 and July 18, 2005.  Structuring, (a.k.a "smurfing"), bank deposits violates 31 U.S.C. § 5324.  It can also be a red flag of money laundering, as mentioned by "A Diplomat & His Offshore Bank Account".

***The website for the Papua New Guinea chapter of Transparency International explains that it "…is raising public awareness of the adverse effects on society of dishonesty and mismanagement".  A press release however, states that the Papua New Guinea chapter and the banks it does business with, may have been victimized by the financial fraud of a Transparency International employee.         

Copyright 2008 Fred L. Abrams