Criminals disguising illicit earnings stay ahead of police efforts to crack down
Published:
28 March 2003 y., Friday
Chinese restaurants that stand empty day and night. Jewelry shops with no customers. Nightclubs without dancers. Travel agencies that don't organize travel.
These are all businesses known at times to launder money -- typically by disguising illicitly generated cash as legal earnings and passing the money through the mainstream banking system.
"There are businesses where it is easier to hide money. I know that Czechs like to travel, but you have a huge amount of travel agencies in Prague," said John Mottram, a European Union accession adviser working on money-laundering policy at the Interior Ministry. "There are also lots of restaurants and bars. I'm sure a number of those businesses are covers for criminal groups, even if the employees there don't realize it."
These days, however, such firms are at the low end of vehicles used to hide sources of ill-gotten gains, observers say. Financial authorities, forensic specialists and bank security officials said money launderers are increasingly using legal and accountancy services, modern computer and Internet technology, stock market transactions and shadowy shell companies in an effort to stay ahead of investigators. As a result, these observers say, authorities are having a harder time than ever finding and prosecuting offenders, even as lawmakers institute EU-compliant laws and banks become more watchful.
Šaltinis:
The Prague Post
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
A specific EU budget line for the new EU stabilisation mechanism should be created as soon as possible, to ensure its credibility, Council, Commission and Parliament negotiators agreed at a three-way meeting on Wednesday.
more »
New EU rule will help phone-users avoid astronomical bills for web-surfing and downloads abroad.
more »
The Communication approved today by the Commission builds on the principles presented on 12 May to reinforce the economic governance in the European Union.
more »
Eurostat report just published shows that the crisis has brought some lower taxes.
more »
New legislation is needed to ensure fair returns to farmers and transparent prices to consumers, by enforcing fair competition throughout the food supply chain, said Agriculture Committee MEPs on Monday.
more »
Fish imports play a crucial role in supplying the European market, yet fisheries and aquaculture are strategic sectors that do not lend themselves to a purely free-trade approach, believes the EP Fisheries Committee.
more »
I will support every proposal that strengthens cooperation among the European Union's Member States and serves Lithuania's interests," President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė said at the meeting with EU Member States' ambassadors resident in Lithuania.
more »
The fourth World Lithuanian Economic Forum “High tech innovation & investment: local to global” will start in London on 22 June.
more »
Lithuania aims for the five Nordic countries and three Baltic States to become single community of values, which would be linked by a versatile quality of democracy, security and everyday life.
more »
MEPs decided on Wednesday to create a special committee to prepare for the EU's next long-term budgetary framework.
more »