29. Leases. Betty Gosh runs ByGosh Realtors in Seattle, Washington. The company is a multi-million dollar agency, and the realty company has been in business for twenty years. Besides selling real estate, the company provides a rental management service for landlords' apartments and commercial properties. All properties that are for sale and requirements of the city statutes that require a two-day cooling off period whereby the lessee may cancel the rental contract. The refund can be made with a check or as a credit to the card used to make the original payment. At the time of cancellation, there is a five-percent penalty.

It is normal for Betty to request a credit check on any renter and this is the procedure followed with all accounts. The rental contract is not consummated until payment is received. Many of the payments are made over the Internet with a credit card after the lessee has requested a rental property. Betty's accountant, Mary Stans, prepared a report showing that the number of cancellations on rental properties with one-year advanced payments has increased by more than 100 percent in the last year, and the vast majority of cancelled accounts have requested a check rather than a credit to their card. This has resulted in the collection of substantial revenue in penalty fees for ByGosh.

Betty is worried about this unusual trend in cancellations, and she casually discussed it with a friend who happened to be a member of the local police force. Betty's friend joked, "it sounds like money laundering to me." Mary checked and all the credit card numbers are different.

How could it be determined whether the Internet payments are the basis for a money laundering scheme?

31. Please Donate to My Favorite Charity. UARB is a charity based in the United States. Its mission statement states that UARB's goal is "to help the poor, sick and oppressed people of the world reach their individualize goals of achievement." UARB has been very successful in obtaining donations from its American nationals who have recently moved to the United States. Millions of dollars have flowed into UARB's U.S. bank accounts from these donations. None of the money collected from these donations is from illegal sources. Once the donations are collected, they are sent to a Nauru bank account and from this bank account checks, money orders, and wire transfers are sent to numerous bank accounts in Europe and Asia.

What is the weakest point in this network on which forensic investigators should concentrate their efforts for determining whether money laundering is occurring?

34. International Inc. In the western provinces of Canada, the Mock-Lee drug ring owns a series of Dollar Stores in 10 medium-sized towns. It uses these stores to launder the money it collects from drug sales. The stores are operated by co-conspirators of the drug ring. Each of the stores has separate accounts in different banks, whenever possible. Although a deposit into an account will occasionally be over the threshold reporting limit, the vast majority of cash deposits are under the threshold.

Merchandise sold in the stores is imported from another co-conspirator, China Merchandising, operating in a free-trade zone in Singapore. Dollar Stores purchases all its retail merchandise from China Merchandising or other related dummy corporations in the free-trade zone. Wire transfers are made to China Merchandising and its dummy corporations for the 10 different Dollar Stores based on doctored invoices from dollar amounts that are above the true value of the goods. China Merchandising operates completely within the free-trade zone after its merchandise shipments are received from its Chinese vendors. Its bank accounts are in the free-trade zone, and the rules of the zone allow the bank to operate under expanded client confidentiality guidelines. Drug shipments to the Mock-Lee organization are separately routed to Canada by drug producers in Thailand. Once the drug shipments have arrived safely in Canada from Thailand, payments are made from the various bank accounts in the free-trade zone to designated accounts of dummy corporations in Thailand or to couriers coming into the free-trade zone to collect cash.

What is the weakest point in this network that Canadian forensic investors should concentrate their efforts on for investigating the money laundering scheme?

41. The "Hammer" Gets Hammered. In 2010, Tom DeLay, former Texas Congressman and U.S. House Majority Leader, was convicted of money laundering and sentenced to a three-year prison term. At the time of this writing, that case is under appeal. During his years in Congress, DeLay was known as the hammer for his political style. Study this money laundering case and flowchart the flow of money. Describe how the money laundering scheme was executed. Why is this called "money laundering"?