Cybercrime-as-a-Service opens up a realm of worrying new possibilities for opportunistic individuals and ideologically motivated groups, as well as a new front for law enforcement and security services to secure. As early as 2013, cybersecurity experts noted that Cybercrime-as-a-Service (CaaS) was a burgeoning business. It is an industry as straightforward as it sounds – professional cybercriminals […]
The New Year didn’t bring any respite for Albania’s beleaguered government as January saw the renewal of public protests with tens of thousands descending on capital Tirana, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama over his alleged links to organized crime. The leader of the ruling Socialist Party has denied accusations of wrong-doing, although […]
Tourism floundered in the aftermath of the notorious 2013 attack at Nairobi’s Westgate Shopping Centre, carried out by Al Qaeda’s affiliate in neighbouring Somalia, Al Shabaab; but now a series of international conferences during 2016 has raised hopes for a successful year for the city’s tourism industry.
With each passing day it seemed another story crossed my desk that I wanted to write about. Now I have so many tabs open on my computer that it is slowing things down considerably. So without further ado, a roundup of stories that have caught my eye in recent days and weeks with brief commentary […]
Given the criminal billions available to ambitious ‘private wealth handlers’ inside the world’s biggest banks, the historic willingness of financial institutions to ‘look the other way,’ and the paltry repercussions, fines and deferred prosecution, for AML (anti-money laundering) non-compliance—it’s clear that powerful incentives continue to drive (and reassure) high-wire account executives ISO under-the-table commissions from traffickers (1-2 percent), and big bonuses from appreciative employers…
For years, the US government, along with FATF (the talking head for the AML community), has told banks the key is to ‘know your customer.’
Wrong.
The message should be “Know your banker.”
Listen.
The easiest way for criminals to launder dirty dollars is simply to pay a banker to do it, someone who manages millions a year for a financial institution that will never look him in the eye and announce, no-punches-pulled, that money laundering is a criminal offense, the kind that can land you in jail.
The New York Times gets it wrong again…after all I’ve written about spin, diversion, and just plain sloppy reporting on Fast and Furious, New York Times reporter Ginger Thompson lands on page A1 with a claim that DEA agents are ‘walking’ narco-dollars into Mexico and back to the cartels the same way ATF, we now know, has been ‘walking’ lethal, military-grade weapons across the US-Mexico border into the hands of cartel killers.
Bunkum.
US Drug Agents Launder Profits for Mexican Cartels isn’t true or fair or even journalism.
What it is, instead, is public relations, a business that, unlike old-fashioned reporting, is safe, simple, and sure to enhance the bottomline for all concerned–corporate owners, editors, and reporters. PR is the new news, the art of pitching client-friendly narratives by pinning them to the general assumptions and fact set of the audience. The New York Times is not the first to go, nor will it be the last.
The point is–it’s working.
Ginger Thompson and the New York Times do us a disservice, not just because they play to our concern for the 40,000 men, women and children already lost to political corruption and criminal greed, but because they portray the commitment of the American people to the rule of law as naïve, misplaced, and unattainable.
Indeed, what the reporter suggests (Is this her aim or just bad research?) is that US law enforcement has proved it is unable to make a difference, that federal agents are bunglers or miscreants, and that, if we aren’t careful, the ‘good guys’ sent in to solve the problem may instead become the worst part of it.
Back up, Ginger. The only kind of money laundering investigations DEA is allowed to conduct today are the kind designed “‘never to embarrass the government of Mexico,” which means US enforcement’s “war against drugs” is, at best, only a skirmish…
Three House Committees and one Senate Committee are spotlighting ATF’s Fast and Furious. Representative Lamar Smith (R-Texas) sent a letter to President Obama more than a month ago asking him to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Eric Holder for perjury. What no one seems to understand is that any US Attorney with jurisdiction in a district where a ‘gun walker’ crime transpired has the statutory authority to empanel a grand jury and open an investigation into more than just perjury…think violation of the Export Control Act. You don’t need a ‘designer prosecutor’ to investigate high profile officials. No one in Washington is going to go out of the way to tell you about this. Read all about it here..
With all of the positive news coming out of Sao Paulo’s stock exchange and the ministries of Brasilia recently, this weekend’s crackdown on organized crime in the Complexo de Alemão and Vila do Cruzeiro favelas reminded the world of the crime-ridden Rio de Janeiro of today, whose parallels can easily be found throughout many of […]
As I highlighted in my last post, violent crime is peaking in Brazil’s interior. A disturbing corollary to this trend is the high rate of targeted violence against indigenous communities. New data compiled by the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) for a report on attacks on indigenous peoples underscores the severity of the problem. As well […]
With the possible exceptions of soccer and samba, Brazil’s global reputation is shaped more by its high rates of violent crime than anything else. Romanticized in popular films and culture, the country’s favelas are the most visible symbol of the issue. But according to the Map of Violence 2010, a new report from the São […]
A new story today by the BBC details the growing problem of police violence in Nigeria. The morgue at the Nigeria University Teaching Hospital overflows with bodies brought in by police, often unnamed but reported to be suspected criminals, such as armed robbers or thieves. In some cases, that may be the case but in […]