While driving his truck across the border of an Eastern European country, Victor, who worked for an international transport company, was caught with a huge amount of cash in different currencies stashed in his truck.

Under local legislation, Victor should have declared this money to customs before attempting to cross the border. Furthermore, the money was concealed in a package, which had names of a number of persons and companies on it.

As the police were questioning him, they remembered an intelligence report that they had received from a neighbouring country a few days before. Kevin, who also worked for an international transport company, was caught bringing money into the neighbouring country without declaring it to customs. The police thought that there could be a connection between the two cases and decided to co-operate more closely with the neighbouring country. A further possible link was that one of the names on Victor’s package was Rob. Rob was a citizen of the neighbouring country, and he owned an exchange office in that jurisdiction. According to police information, Rob was linked to a terrorist organisation and his exchange office was heavily involved in laundering the organisations’ dirty money.

The police notified the national FIU of the cash detection and the possible link to the neighbouring country. The FIU decided to analyse the names and company details on Victor’s package to determine whether they had any known or suspected links to criminality. The FIU determined that Pete, one of the names on the package, was Rob’s brother and also had his own exchange office in the neighbouring country. Apart from that, Pete had authorisation in two non-residential accounts in the main jurisdiction. Inquiries with the bank employees revealed that the identity of the actual account holders was unknown. Financial analysis identified that Pete was using the non-residential accounts to transfer money to several countries. According to the documentation supplied by Pete to the financial institution, the transferred money was income from an export business. That way Pete concealed the real origin of the moneys.

At time of writing, the trials are still in progress.

Indicators:
Large-scale cash transactions
Atypical or uneconomical fund transfer to or from foreign jurisdiction
Multiple currency cash format
Unrealistic business turnover