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Money laundering is a process through which criminals legitimise proceeds derived from illegal activity.
One complete money laundering process includes
three stages: placement, layering and integration.1
Money laundering is often a highly complex process,
rather than a single act. Due to its complicated characteristics, money laundering methods will be diverse.
Generally speaking, the common methods, widely
used by criminals, include smuggling currency and
laundering money through nancial institutions and
non-nancial institutions. With the enhancement of
anti-money laundering measures, however, the drawbacks of traditional approaches to money laundering
are evident.
Currency smuggling means that money launderers
transfer illegal proceeds in secret to any other country
or territory. In May 1988, inspectors at Miami Airport
in America found $30m, which was demonstrated to
be the proceeds of drug tracking, hidden in luggage,
TV sets, deodorant cans and even in tennis balls.2
Another example, in September 2001, was when
Hong Kong uncovered the biggest transboundary
money laundering criminal gang throughout its history, which involved HK$50bn. It is surprising that
for almost six years money launderers carried suitcases
lled with HK$10m from Luo Hu Custom in Shen
Zhen to Hong Kong and then transferred these
funds to 1,300 accounts every day. They also transferred 29 kinds of currency from Guang Zhou to
Hong Kong by vans and sedans three times daily.
The largest sum of dirty money transferred to Hong
Kong on some days amounts to HK$50m.3
Currency smuggling, as one means of money laundering, is still not out of date. Currency is still the primary form of illegal proceeds. Furthermore, once
successful, it is possible to conceal the criminal origin
of these currencies and achieve what the criminal
wishes. However, currency smuggling may not be
the wisest method of money laundering at present,
considering economic globalisation and nancial electronics. Currency smuggling runs a bigger risk of
being discovered due to its bulk. The more there is
money laundering, such as currency smuggling, laundering through nancial institutions or non-nancial
institutions are more or less blocked. The reasons for
this situation are as follows: rst, the built-in attributes
of traditional currency hamper any money laundering
activity. Traditional currency has a limited face value
and occupies a certain space. It is dicult for criminals
to carry, transfer and conceal large amounts of currency, which not only consume massive resources
and have an increasing criminal cost, but also run the
risk of being investigated. It also takes a long time to
count traditional money and this slows the speed of
transactions. Moreover, the number of traditional
currencies has to some extent made an impact upon
condentiality. Secondly, conventional methods of
money laundering frequently make use of intermediaries, such as banks, non-bank nancial institutions or
non-nancial institutions. Due to the ever-growing
gravity of money laundering crime, the international
community has put pressure on vulnerable institutions
to assume responsibility in the ght against money
laundering. The continuous eects of combating
money laundering, such as sucient implementation
of client identication, record keeping and suspicious
transactions reporting for vulnerable institutions, and
laundering through intermediaries are more challenging than ever. However, with the emergence of
electronic currency and web-based services, criminals
have developed money laundering schemes to
circumvent relevant countermeasures.
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The revolution of information technology represented by computers and the internet has farreaching impacts on economic and social life. At the
same time, however, it also provides criminals with
a scarce opportunity. When people gain access to the
cyberspace created by computers and the internet, it
gives money launderers a secure preventive screen.
At present, one of the new issues of anti-money laundering is how to prevent and control laundering
through internet banks. An internet bank is also a
virtual bank, which can oer all kinds of nancial service anywhere and any time on the internet. It was
reported that the range of nancial services available
on the internet appears to be growing. These nancial
services include direct payments, electronic funds
transfers, issue of cheques, purchase of securities and
opening/closing of accounts. Of course,
`these trends vary from one jurisdiction to another.
In Hong Kong, for example, cash payments are the
norm, and, although banks oer online banking
services, the public currently favours the use of
automated teller machine (ATMs) or direct contact
with the nancial institutions. In Finland on the
other hand, almost half of the population has
access to the internet, and some 85 per cent of
retail payment orders are transmitted to banks electronically.'17
INTERNET CASINO
OVERPOWERING LURE
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RESPONSE TO HIGH-TECH
LAUNDERING
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Require internet service providers (ISPs) to maintain reliable subscriber registers with appropriate
identication information.
Require ISPs to establish log les with trac data
relating the internet-protocol number to the subscriber and to the telephone number used in the
connection.
Require that this information be maintained for a
reasonable period (six months to a year).
Ensure that this information may be made available internationally in a timely manner when
conducting criminal investigations.
REFERENCES
(1)
(2)
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(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11)
(12)
CONCLUSIONS
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(13)
(14)
(15)
(16)
(17)
(18)
(19)
(20)
(21)
(22)
(23)
(24)
(25)
(26) Ibid.
(27) http://www.dailynews.tyfo.com/news/itknowing/block/
html/2000121100040html.
(28) Schopper, M. D. (2002) `Internet Gambling, Electronic Cash
and Money Laundering: The Unintended Consequences of a
Money Control Scheme', Chapman Law Review, Spring.
(29) Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering
(20002001) Report on Money Laundering Typologies.
(30) Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering
(19981999) Report on Money Laundering Typologies.
(31) Tang Ying-mao (2002) Electronic Money and Law, Law Press,
January, pp.173185.
(32) Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering
(19992000) Report on Money Laundering Typologies.
(33) Ibid.
(34) Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering
(20002001) Report on Money Laundering Typologies.
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