Hey, we've been saying this for years. It appears the experts now admit we were right. The difference is that what they _worry_ about, we _embrace_. --Tim Wednesday June 4 10:07 AM EDT Internet could help crime syndicates launder money By Richard Waddington LISBON - Big crime syndicates could soon be using the Internet to launder dirty money and there might not be much authorities can do about it, an international conference was told on Tuesday. The international web, which already allows clients to shop and sell around the globe, could become the perfect medium for the cocaine barons of Colombia or the Mafia gangs of Sicily to make their ill-gotten wealth respectable. International police are already having a hard time keeping up with the sophisticated maneuvers of criminals and fraudsters as they switch funds from country to country, often making use of lax banking regulations. But with the Internet and the coming introduction of electronic cash, so-called E-cash, the authorities could lose what has been one of their only advantages -- the need for criminal gangs to handle and at some stage deposit big quantities of cash. ..... E-cash could take the place of physical money in the same way that E-mail has replaced the posting of letters. Huge sums could be switched from person to person without the need to pass through any form of banking system, experts said. .... Backhouse said that experiments with E-cash, or digital banking, were already being carried out in around 25 countries and the system could become commonplace within five years or so. "What is only a little trickle at the moment will become a roaring torrent," he told Reuters. But the ability to switch faceless funds effortlessly around the world was not the only danger posed by the revolution under way in international communications, experts said. Organized crime could use the Internet to set up web-based companies offering services of all types to act as vehicles for "washing" their funds. "The Internet is an ideal medium. It will be difficult to prove that such companies and transactions are false," said Maclachlan. Crime gangs could even go so far as to set up their own banking services as accounts can be established with Internet banks using no more than a photocopy of a driving license as proof of identity, experts said. Global by nature, the network could be particularly difficult to police because of the tricky question of territoriality. Which country has responsibility when a bank can be based only in electronic space? Copyright, Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved