Geopolitics And The War On Terrrorism

[Guest]

The Invisible Bankers
Great article in Forbes by Mike Freedman

some side bar stuff:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Keeping Cash Clean </b>

1.  An individual walks into a convenience store in the U.S. that also sends money overseas.

2. He hands over $200 to be sent to Pakistan.

3. The convenience store owner, also a hawaladar, takes a fee for maybe 1% for the service and calls his hawaladar cousin in Peshawar to give him details of the transaction.

4. The hawaladar in the U.S. puts the money in the cash register, mixing it with other funds from the day's sales.

5. Within 24 hours the cousin in Peshawar delivers, often by hand, an equal amount of cash to the recipient.

6. Later the Pakistani cousins settle up. One way: The convenience store owner ships his cousin $1,000 worth of goods but invoices for only $800.

7. The cousin sells the goods for $1,000 and wire-transfers back the $800, thus closing the cycle. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->By the Numbers

Homeland Security is attempting to clean up the informal remittance industry. But with at least 20,000 of these outfits, there's still a lot of work to be done.

155 The number of Homeland Security arrests of alleged unlicensed money remitters since November 2001.¹

92% The percentage of those arrests that have led to criminal indictments.

$25.8 million The amount of alleged illicit proceeds seized in the arrests. 

0 The number of terror financiers convicted among those arrested.

¹As of mid-August 2005. Source: U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement.
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