Cop Nation / Re: E-Peso's for tractors - McCaffrey on banking

Robert Hettinga wrote:

From: "Blair Anderson" Subject: E-Peso's for tractors - McCaffrey on banking

U.S. drug czar appeals to banks to track laundering By Anthony Boadle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bankers, watch those ``smurf'' accounts.

...

Any innocent-looking person could be depositing a drug baron's cash parceled into amounts smaller that the $10,000 reporting threshhold to avoid suspicion, so get to know your customer, they warned.

Is it my imagination, or can the above be loosely translated as, "_Everyone_ is a suspect!"

``We are losing contact with the enemy,'' the general said. ''The government cannot follow laundering by itself. You are going to have to help.''

"I turned in my best customer, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt!"

McCaffrey said the drug trade was moving into new areas such as the securities industry to launder its profits.

Looks like we're going to need some additional snitches in that area. I wonder if the grade-school narc-trainers are going to advise the children to go through their parent's finiancial statements while they are searching for the parent's bag of pot. Perhaps those who fail to graduate from high-school can get a GED later in life by turning in their spouse's parents to John Law. Can't get that promotion at the bank because the position requires an MBA? Ratting out your customers (guilty or not--and *you* are keeping the books) can get you valuable college credits.

Keely, a former New York City police commissioner, warned that money laudering was corroding financial institutions.

...but failed to mention if there was a 'down-side' as well.

``It is the source and the product of a burgeoning global parallel trading system that serves the emerging criminal holding companies,'' he told the bankers and lawyers.

Which provides funding for a large number of secret government agencies.

The banking industry complained it had to file 12 million such reports in 1996, a time consuming and costly activity.

The alternative is to risk being indicted as a co-conspirator in your customer's crimes. That reminds me...I bought a glass of lemonade from a neighborhood kid's sidewalk stand today. I'd better go rat her out to the Treasury Department and the DEA, so that when they show up on my doorstep they will have a T-shirt for me, instead of handcuffs. RatMonger