Financial Crimes and Institutional Security

Financial Crimes and Institutional Security

1. Advise Ms. Andra

An attorney is the legal representative of the company who advice on the behalf of the company or a professional person authorized to practice law, conduct lawsuits or give legal advice. Hence, Ms. Andra main responsibility is to advice an accurate and legal advice to the company whether to go for the joint venture or not. This can only be done after a deep analysis of the interested party (currency dealer) who want to undertake this venture. It would be recommended to Ms. Andra that USNPO should not undertake such a joint venture as currency dealer has grip on the how to convert black money in to white money and the methods of transferring from one country to another. The only things these people need are the secure backbone. The following are the main reason due to which it is not safe for USNPO for joint venture with currency dealer.

The terrorist financing may come from legitimate sources (donations from individuals, a company's profits and charitable organizations) as well as from criminal sources. These funds are then transferred through unofficial and even financial markets to a terrorist organization (www.alixpartners.com).

Money laundering is a key technology of financial crime. This is the act of concealing the origin of illegally acquired money (speculation illegal activities mafia, drug trafficking, of arms, extortion, corruption) to reinvest in legal activities (e.g. construction real estate, NGO, charity work etc). This is an important step, because without money, criminals could not use these massively illegal incomes without being detected. Moreover, as money laundering has captured public attention after Sept. 11 terrorist attack. Analysts say that bin Laden and his network have long relied on the banking system to transfer funds to terrorists around the world and to hide the true origin of their finances. Indeed, bin Laden himself has boasted about his ability to exploit the cracks inside the Western financial system (Republic of Zambia, 2010, pp. 71).

U.S. policy makers have been concerned about bin Laden since 1998, when he allegedly orchestrated the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Following that attack, U.S. President Bill Clinton (D, 1993-2001) ordered the Treasury Department to track down the financial network supporting bin Laden's terrorist activities and freeze any assets that could be linked to Al Qaeda. However, no money was frozen under that order. Two years later, Clinton asked Congress for $6.4 million to set up a Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, for example, has frequently come out against strict rules to combat money laundering, arguing that they impose unfair costs on banks. As a result, analysts say, the U.S. financial network was left open to manipulation by the terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11 attack. These terrorists don't operate in a vacuum--they need a support network, says Ilan Berman, a counterterrorism expert at the American Foreign Policy Council, a nonprofit research institute (Sherman T. 1993, pp. 71).

Indeed, Al Qaeda operatives have developed ...