A Money Laundering Route

The route drug money travels in order to gain legitimacy is long and complex. A short BBC video illustrates it based on a 2017 case which convicted several people in a $250 million international money laundering operation, one where the architect of the scheme is still at large however. The cash originated from drug sales in Britain. A Moroccan money launderer picked it up and made contact with a money mule in Paris. The cash was then transported in the mule’s ambulance trucks and given to a money counter who neatly sorted it into piles of $1000. It was then picked up by middle aged women who drove to Antwerp in Belgium with the money. In Antwerp a black market gold dealer exchanged the money for gold, and apparently bought it back even giving fake receipts so all would look legitimate when taken out of the country. But that is not yet the end, then someone took a flight from Belgium to Amsterdam, and with almost clean money they flew to Dubai, to the gold market there, one of renown throughout the world. They bought gold which could then be sold and the cash deposited in regular bank accounts. All that making the cash’s origins untraceable to the drug dealers in Britain!  The effort, the hours, the people and no doubt the lives it took to piece this puzzle together begs our respect. The route laundering money from US drug sales must indeed be no less circuitous. The UN estimates that yearly $800 billion to $2 trillion are laundered. Maybe we’re outside this vast illicit matrix but knowing more about how money laundering works is nevertheless important.