ok, having fiinshed the mandatory continuing ed to keep my financial licences there actually was a new way to launder money I learned about, and being the good little runner, I'm sharing it here.

This is called 'smurfs' I kid you not. it is a way to hide your money so people checking you may not realize how much you have so might not be much of a risk.

The idea is that account of $10k or more must be reported to the government. If you make a bunch of depostis just under $10k to the acocunt, like multiple entries for $9,900 , $ 9,800 $9,972 etc. this is also supposed to be reported in a Suspicious Activity Report. making it hard to amass a large amount of money AND making netries like that are also criminal since you are attmepting to evade reporting rules (that's something they are going after Barry Bonds for)

smurfs is a way around this.

You have to go to the bother of opening multiple small accounts but as long as they are seperate, they don't trigger the SAR. each small account is called a smurf. In this way a person may actuall aggrigate a large amount of money for buying things without anyone htinking you have too much- his account here? only $8k, no big deal, but 10 accounts, all below the thresh hold that no one has to report them, and it's $80k to play with.

The most famous case of smurfs todate? That was how the 9/11 terorrists were funded without it looknig like there was a big bank roll behind their trianing, lifestyle and schooling.

This is why we love Snow Fox, and the government doesn't want to upset her in any way, shape, or form.

When I get money, I already want her to be my accountant.

The technical term is 'structuring' transactions or deposits. You utilize multiple couriers, accounts, money transfer agents, etc to break up large transactions to avoid taxes or criminal investigation.

The couriers, account holders, shell corps, or whatever are called 'smurfs'.

So the funds could be split up among different shell corporations, numbered bank accounts, members of your clan/extended family and so on. Or your receiver could just have many different fake IDs and collect the money at many different locations.

Of course, most people didn't sign up to play AccountantRun, so aren't too interested in such things. As long as the cops don't investigate my stash of ill gotten gains, I don't describe the complex money laundering schemes that I use to keep the away from investigation.

I'd need it to be bulletproof. And maybe shoot lasers. Cause then I'd be shooting lasers from my head.

Sharing money laundering info helps the terorrists!

Surely you don't think there is even one criminal organization on the planet that hasn't figured this out long ago.

I'm going to have to assume he was being sarcastic, there. After all, there's precious little that the governments of Bush and Blair don't think aids terrorism.

Terrorism being defined as the other guys, naturally.

With the balkanization in SR there will be a whole lot more cross border banking and currency transfers. Of course, the increase of computerization means that such transactions are probably easier to track, on the other hand, not all places will keep such good records.

As North America doesn't seem to have any similar analogs to EuroPol, nor any less formal cooperative measures, it's free money almost certainly laundering for everyone.

I hold multiple accounts (just because some banks offer better interest rates in CDs, in checking, in savings, so on and so forth). They do run a credit check for loans, which turns up what other bank accounts you have open, however they don't ever ask you if you have other accounts in other banks. I don't recollect their running a credit check for creating a savings account. Clearly, most will let you create multiple separate CDs or savings accounts under the same name (so you can have one shared with your wife, one just for you, another just for the coffee club, etc.), but they're all attached to the same person (me) and the same account number, so I'd assume having $80k split up among ten accounts with the same bank would be a poor idea.

I would also assume that a standard credit check would turn up this discrepancy, even if the banks aren't actually signaling warning flags. So if someone runs a credit check on you (which can only be done with your permission) and they decide to rat on you, that may be a different case.

Snow Fox can correct me if I'm wrong.

I can correct you on that one. Your credit check shows your credit -- what you owe, not what's owed you. Your savings and checking accounts simply don't show up on your credit report.

Things like credit cards, loans (auto, home, misc), and other debt shows up. If you go to 1st 3rd bank and set up a checking account, and then go to 3rd 2nd bank and set up a checking account, not only don't they know about each other, it's pretty much impossible for them to find out, legally. A legally empowered 3rd party (power of attorney, the government with a subpoena, ect) could potentially find out, if they asked enough questions of enough banks, but the banks themselves would have a dilly of a time finding out.

I work for a credit card bank (inbound customer relations), and customer privacy is a huge deal. For a third party identifying themselves as a merchant, we can confirm exactly 3 things: The account number, the name, and the address, but only if they provide it to us. If what they give us is even a little wrong, we have to say "Nope, doesn't match." If any other third party calls and wants information, the only response I can give is "Sod off wanker, I can't even tell you if they do or do not have an account." This is all part of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. You would be amazed at the number of people who call in each day wanting information about other people's accounts. Usually it's things like spouses or signifigant other's, and most of them either don't understand or refuse to understand that I and legally forbidden from helping them, without the account owner's explicit permission.

If a law enforcement agency wants information, they have to fax their request to our fraud team, on department letterhead, and it gets handled from there. I don't know exactly what they can do with it, but I doubt it's much without a subpoena.

right and as long as each smurf is under $10k it's considered too small to really pay attention to so unless the police come to you bank and asks "do you have an account for mr so and so, " they ain't showing up on radar.

Using offshore banks it is best to have someone on the inside who can layer what you're doing. banks or nations that are known not to follow federal guidelinesd can find themselves cut out of US trade.
The best example of this is the current issue with North Korea and some $25 million in funds. The US froze the assets in the Macao bank that was being used by N Korea to launder money. The bank did that or it would be banned from doing buisness with US companies or trading US dollars- a croppling blow in the current world. In the 2070's it would be nuyen. Even when the US unfroze the assets in February as part of the anti-nuke deal with NK they are still stuck because they are having trouble finding another bank to take the money. No one wants to be associated with NK's activity and be cut out of American trade.
If they had someone on the inside masking what they were doing they might have gotten away with it, but the bank was called for not following US regulatory rules-sure they're in another country but the dollar is powerful enough that the US can project their regulations like that.

This is really useful information, Snow Fox... for realism in a game, I mean...

Okay, seriously, I have a question but it's a very vague one... are there loopholes in the system by design, at all? It would seem to me that there are occasions when even governments want to sneak some money around. Things like CIA operations abroad that require funding. That sort of stuff. I'm just wondering if there are ever rules that say something like Party X should not show up on such and such an audit, etc. Because that would be an interesting situation in a Shadowrun game.

It's emerged last week how the UK government has been bribing a Saudi prince to buy arms from a big British firm (and never, ever get me started on how much I loathe the Saudi royal family and what they've done to the people there), The bribery came to £120m apparently. They were sneaking the money through a tiny little clause in a support contract. I'm just wondering if that comes under money laundering and if so how governments keep their own operations safe. In this case, the UK government actually forbade the fraud office from investigating, but it got out to the press.

Interesting. In the US no, we don't ask about other accounts just for setting one up. In fact when it comes to elderly clients with IRA's we have to warn them that we don't know about other accounts for tax reporting purposes.
In the UK are their penalties if you don't tell? or this could be how they're looking for smurfs.
When discussing investments one of the first things we do is ask clients where their other investments are-for example if they already have a lot in Bonds elsewehre, I don't need to get them into bonds with my firm, but I have no way of forcing/requiring/compelling them to tell me or be truthful.

Technically if a government does it, it's not laundering. A government is looking for launderers.

OK read about a new one today, the North Koreans were doing it in Japan but got snagged. they got greedy to the tune of 62 billion.

You are the criminal(north korea) you have a seperate party lend you money, say 10million as an example. you reneg on the loan so the lender goes bankrupt. You then buy their company at banrupcty prices with part of the 10 million, and then you forgive the debt you owe yourself. You legally borrowed the money and bought out the ocmpany that lent it to you (if someone else buys it, they'll press you for the money on the debt so you have to buy it, but since you're going to forgive the debt you can go higher than anyone else) The trick is where did the lender get the money? Who knows. they've gone out of business and no one can find them. Implied the money is illegal gains- yakuza or N koreans.

They were running this for a few years and only tripped up when they got greedy and pushed too many buttons at once.

sounds like Enron, and 1/2 the C level execs you hear about.

In 2050, most of the 'them' are not interested in you. In addition, the large number of different jurisdictions in close proximity (both real and virtual) who don't share information will probably make laundering money simple. Sure they know about all of Smith, John Robert accounts in the UCAS, but what about the three with the carrib league, the 2 with the first bank of Aztech, the other one with Ares, and so on?

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One thing I think they should emphasize more in the world books is that money talks. Almost all the old loyalties to outdated ideas like justice, the state, the good of the people, are almost gone. Everyone is basically out for himself and his mates. Grease enough palms and it's, "Yes, sir. No, sir. Three bags full, sir."
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Nah I scan what you're typing CB, but having knowledge about something and doing something are two different things. I mean the UCAS may have knowledge about Joe Shadowrunner's four suspect accounts but they may not do anything because they are going after Ares and their money laundering scheme.

The authorities can't do total enforcement because they lack the resources and energy so they go with selective enforcement. The point of the smurfing is to stay under the radar.

My point is wouldn't that radar be better in 2050+ and maybe schemes like smurfing, in its current form, would not be practical anymore? Sure there are other ways to beat the system but with SR digital tech is this one of them?

The difficulty is generally not in 'recording' the information but in analyzing it. Especially with the multiple jurisdictions in SR, billions of are transferred internationally every day. Heck, riding around the city in a cab may involve international money transfer, as the cab company might be based in adjoining corp territory. If the cab company runs 1000 legitimate fares a week, who'll know to look into the extra 25 generated fares that are part of a money laundering scheme? Now imagine that a place like Denver does hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of international money transfer every day...

Sure once you know to look at a guy/corp you can get their financial records and take a look, but you have to know who to look at first. And that's the reason that Snow Fox gets the training, to ID the suspicions transactions and pass that info on to the cops. But she operates under a central licensing authority that is not very corrupt. The licensing authorities in SR will be both decentralized and much more buyable.

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Of course, this doesn't mean that the SR world won't have its own dangers for money launderers. I'd expect a much greater breaking down of payments and transfers, and possibly having the money cross several borders as well. If you can still be traced across multiple jurisdictions, expect a few transfers to fungible goods as well, so that there is no data trail. It wasn't that long ago that Indian contract workers sent gold jewelry back home for resale as a method of sending their pay home.

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All what was said is only helpful in the US of A.
If you have bank accounts in germany, the goverment knows all your accounts. There is a central Database for goverment use. And there are several other Databases like "Schufa", were credit institutes and other parties with a "legal" interest can get the informations about all bank accounts of any person.

All german Bank accounts. And if your pay taxes in germany, they know your bank accounts in most other country in the EU as well. Most european countries compley with the german laws, that they must tell the german goverment all bank accounts of german citizens.

The Database was intended for taxation, but today some other goverment agencies have access too.

I understand now. Interesting. Thanks.

not quite Nemo, my point is that this latest story is in Japan and the theory should work in Germany.Suppose you're the drug dealerr with 100,000 in cash, but as you say, the government is aware of what's in your bank account so something like that just dropping in sets off the bells and whistles. so you come to me, your friendly financier andI find someone who will make a nice legal loan to you of 100,000 less handler fees (I pocket 2% for my trouble.) This money is of course the cash you handed over. So now you put it in your bank account and when they ask where it comes from, you point to the nice legal loan you have. Now obviously you forget to make payments on your loan and the company who lent you the money goes out of business due to unpaid bills. so of ocurse there is no one to refer the matter to a collection agent, or if the regulation is more severe, you buy the company at litterally bancruptcy prices and then just forgive the particulr debt. Sincethe finance corp is no longer in businessthere is no one to explain to regulartors where they got them oney from, and after the 10 minutes it takes to fill out the ppwrk, they're not going to exist either so...

Isn't the "third party" loan-to-self one of the oldest tricks in the book? and one of the hardest to crack?

no, you do need that 2nd party to carry it out or they are onto you. where'd you get the money? I loaned it to myself. not good

Hence "third party" -- second being the go-between who connects the launderer with the launderee.

I think this was the first type of money laundering I ever learned about -- can't even remember where I learned about it, it was Munich-level long ago.

Back to the original point about smurfing. I still don't think it would be that effective in the SR world.

Okay say I open X number of accounts in certain countries. The institution has a database that shows each account I've opened, how much money is in it, and all my bank history. The way I read SR, or at least view the world is that straight people, i.e. the law-abiding general public, have traded in liberty and privacy for security. If I have a SIN then the government and certain corporations are going to know pretty much everything about what I do, how many accounts I have with them, what I buy, and so on.

Sure I can do the loan money laundering scheme. That's pretty standard. I can even shuffle money around from country to county, buy and sell stocks, wash it in whatever way I need to.

But to my mind if I open say fifteen accounts in the UCAS then that is going to send up a red flag no matter how much money I have in them since everything I do legally in the UCAS is attached to my UCAS SIN. Some IRS staffer is going to say, "Why does Bob Johnson have fifteen accounts with 100 nuyen in each one?"

I could probably open each account under a different SIN and have fewer than 10K nuyen in each one but think of what a pain in the ass that is. Plus getting all those SINs would probably cost more then the money in the account.

Now that's not getting into corporate accounts, especially ones with extraterroritality, or certified cred attached to a corp or government which isn't tied to your SIN, or anything else.

The way that I see it is that is the reason that you want to be paid in certified credit. Either that or you want a corporate personal account that looks the other way for a small fee (2% standard). Being an individual means that the cops will come down on you because they can't bust the bigger fish because they are in bed with them in the SR world.

Did I miss anything or am I just totally off base with this one?

smurfing in SR would work if you're hiding your activities- maybe a corp looks for large piggy banks -any account over level X who is that? so you spread it out in the msurfs until you need to spring the pounce.

Okay Gotcha. Thanks for the Clarification SF