Money laundering is driven by criminal activities and conceals the true source, ownership, or use of funds. The International Monetary Fund estimates money laundering from drug trafficking alone, amounts to between 2 and 5 percent of the world's Gross Domestic Product, about $600 billion annually.

The need to launder conspicuously large amounts of small-denomination bills renders drug traffickers vulnerable to law enforcement interdiction. Intercepting this illegal flow of drug money is an important tool used to identify and dismantle international drug trafficking organizations.

Drug traffickers and other criminals use various methods to launder their profits both inside and outside of the United States. Some of the more common laundering methods include:

• The Black Market Colombian Peso Exchange.
• Cash smuggling (couriers or bulk cash shipments), and gold purchases.
• Structured deposits and withdrawals to and from bank accounts (also known as “smurfing”).
• Purchase of monetary instruments (such as cashier's checks, money orders, traveler's checks).
• Wire transfers.
• Underground banking, particularly the "hawala" system in Pakistan and India, and the "fie chen" system in China.

The Ten Fundamental Laws of Money Laundering:

1. The more successful a money laundering apparatus is in imitating the patterns and behavior of legitimate transactions, the less likely it is of being exposed.
2. The more deeply embedded illegal activities are within the legal economy and the less their institutional and functional separation, the more difficult it is to detect money laundering.
3. The lower the ratio of illegal to legal financial flows through any given business institution, the more difficult it is to detect money laundering.
4. The higher the ratio of illegal "services" to physical goods production in any economy, the more easily money laundering can be conducted in that economy.
5. The more the business structure of production and distribution of non-financial goods and services is dominated by small and independent firms or self-employed individuals, the more difficult the job of separating legal from illegal transactions.
6. The greater the facility of using checks, credit cards and other non-cash instruments for effecting illegal financial transactions, the more difficult it is to detect money laundering.
7. The greater the degree of financial deregulation for legitimate transactions, the more difficult it is to trace and neutralize criminal money.
8. The lower the ratio of illegally to legally earned income entering any given economy from outside, the harder it is to separate criminal from legal money transfers.
9. The greater the progress towards the financial services supermarket and the greater the degree to which all manner of financial services can be met within one integrated multi-divisional institution, the more difficult it is to detect money laundering.
10. The greater the contradiction between global operation and national regulation of financial markets, the more difficult the detection of money laundering.

Criminals often need to "launder" the proceeds of their crimes; and especially where organized crime, drug trafficking and corruption are involved, the consequences of money laundering are bad for business, development, government and the rule of law. Money laundering is a purely information-based crime. It's all about conducting transactions in such a way as to hide the cash flow from the watchful eyes of the law. It's an insidious act that helps everyone from drug lords to terror cells to get the finances they need to continue their illegal work.

That's why ICS is perfectly suited to conduct a money laundering investigation. Intelligence is the name of our game. Our specialty is getting information in a powerful, efficient, and discreet manner. We know every trick in the book that criminals use to hide what they're doing, and we relentlessly pursue even the smallest clues until they yield fruit. If you require information, you can rest assured that ICS can obtain it for you.

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