A newly appointed credit manager at a car loan company was concerned about one of his customers, Ray.

Ray had recently bought a luxury sports car worth about USD55,000. He obtained a five-year loan for USD40,000 through the credit company, and had paid the balance in cash. The credit manager undertook some checks against historical records and discovered that Ray had had several loans over the previous six years; all for the same amount of money and all with a large proportion of cash as a deposit. More significantly, in a number of the cases the loans had been repaid early in cash. The credit manager decided to report his concern to the senior management of the loan company. After assessing the facts, the management decided to disclose the case to the national FIU.

The FIU searched the disclosure against their databases, and very quickly linked Ray to a long established criminal organisation. The FIU forwarded the disclosure to an operational team in the police force, which was already targeting the organisation. The team obtained a court order to examine all relevant records at the loan company. It became clear that Ray was selling the newly bought cars on to private buyers and small garages, and obtaining cheques from these new owners. Further investigation revealed a single bank account into which all cheques gained from the sale of the car were paid.

It appeared that Ray was working at the criminal organisation's laundering division. Ray was entering cash from the sale of drugs into the banking system by means of the initial cash deposit to the car loan firm, as well as clearing the loan with a second cash sum. The cheques from customers and small businesses, to who Ray sold the cars, would appear to any bank employee examining the account to be legitimate sources of income. The loss made on both the loan and the drop in resale value the criminal organisation simply saw as a cost to be borne in exchange for cleaned funds that would attract no law enforcement attention.

Because of the identification of the bank account, an accurate assessment of the criminally laundered funds could be made. The financial information collected allowed the financial investigators on the operational team to produce a more accurate benefit of crime statement. An additional USD300,000 was confiscated as a result of the information generated by the initial disclosure.

Indicators:
Early repayment of loans
Unusual client activity (multiple loans in short period)
Large-scale cash transactions