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COVID Leaves Money Launderers Struggling To Do Their Washing
How can you launder money when all the cash-heavy businesses are closed?
Have you heard of the ‘law of unintended consequences’?
When countries, including the UK, locked down to protect hospitals from being overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, some consequences were known and allowed for, from some people losing their employment to mass loneliness and isolation. There were predictable consequences (but not, perhaps, considered) like an increase in domestic violence caused by people forced by the rules to spend more time at home: And there were consequences that were unintended and not predicted, maybe not predictable.
Who would have thought that money launderers would have found lockdown so challenging?
Why do criminals need to launder money?
Criminal activity, primarily (but not only) the drugs trade, generates lots of cash and gives criminals a headache.
Put yourself in the position of being a mid-level drugs distributor. Assume one street-level dealer can sell one hundred wraps of cocaine a day for £20 ($30) each — cash transactions. This dealer has generated £2,000 in a day: Then, assume that twenty such street dealers are in a given city…
