Your adversary may be placing assets offshore to hide them from you. Meanwhile, you could be trying to locate these assets through an asset search. One thing you might be able to do is spot the common methods for placing assets offshore. If you find your adversary used these methods, it might help you sniff out your adversary’s money trail. Common methods for placing assets offshore include:
- Wire transfers are the most common way people/businesses transfer hidden money offshore. My post “Searching For Assets Hidden By Hawaladars” featured a suspected terrorist financing scheme (Egmont Group Case Ref. No.06060). That scheme was facilitated by wire transfers to offshore bank accounts.
- Bulk-cash smuggling: “Concealing Assets By Smuggling Cash.” has links to my posts about cash smuggling into: Liechtenstein, Iraq and Puerto Rico. It also mentioned 2 attempts to smuggle cash in boxes of laundry detergent at Texas border entries.
- Portable valuable commodities: “Once Jailed Banker Gets $104 Million Whistleblower Payout” talks about ex-UBS banker Bradley Birkenfeld. Mr. Birkenfeld reportedly smuggled diamonds (i.e. portable valuable commodities) in a toothpaste tube across the U.S. border. A 2008 press release similarly describes how governmental authorities interdicted $1.2 million in jewelry from a passenger arriving at NY’s JFK Airport.
- Trade-based money laundering: If your adversary uses a business to hide assets, your adversary could conceivably engage in trade-based money laundering. Trade-based launderig can involve transferring goods offshore. As The Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”) has said, trade-based money laundering consists of: over or under-invoicing of goods or services; the over or under-shipping of goods; falsely describing goods or services; or multiple invoicing. To learn more about it, read the FATF’s 6/23/2006 publication.
Copyright 2020 Fred L. Abrams