Trade misinvoicing in Mexico and Colombia under scrutiny
Global Financial Integrity (GFI) has published an analysis of trade misinvoicing in Mexico and Colombia where individuals or entities falsify the quantity, price, and quality of goods to launder money, claim tax incentives, or evade taxes, duties and capital controls. Corruption, lack of political will,…
Chinese national sentenced to 14 years for role in sophisticated TBML ring laundering drug proceeds for Mexican cartels
A key player in a most sophisticated trade-based money laundering (TBML) ring, Xianbing Gan, has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for laundering illegal narcotics proceeds on behalf of drug traffickers in Mexico. The TBML ring laundered hundreds of millions of dollars via US…
TCOs “highly favour” TBML operations to manipulate financial institutions and international trade
Transnational Criminal Organisations (TCOs) continue to highly favour trade-based money laundering (TBML) operations to transport and launder illicit proceeds through the manipulation of international trade and financial institutions according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA’s) recently published National Drug Threat Assessment 2020. It says…
Merchants and traders swap currencies in ‘most sophisticated’ ever form of money laundering
The Reuters news agency has highlighted a case of what one US source familiar with the investigation described as “the most sophisticated form of money laundering that’s ever existed”. The way such operations work involve legitimate merchants and traders, sometimes unknowingly, sending the US proceeds…
Inland Revenue Service division awarded for cracking complex US-Mexico TBML conspiracy
The US treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has awarded the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CID)for its investigation into a transnational money laundering organisation operating in the US and Mexico through a complex trade-based money laundering (TBML) scheme. The division was one of seven…
Coronavirus disrupting TBML flows from US drug sales
Some analysts have suggested that chaos in the illegal narcotics trade’s supply chains and financing operations due to coronavirus pandemic impacts may push drug barons towards trade-based money laundering (TBML) operations (Trade-based Financial Crime, 24 April 2020). But data recently released suggests that the proceeds…
