Hong Kong money laundering centre of the world

[tck]

This was like one of those... guess how many beans are in this jar thing for me. I read the headline and immediately played a game with my manager of how much volume HKD 230m would take. We drastically underestimated how compact 230m could be. We were picturing 6 of those red white and blue nylon bags.

[dynamco]

there have been several robberies in the past year of people transporting money changer monies to the bank on foot
this revelation of sheer quantity being carried means it's Open Season
normally you would think a legal electronic transfer SWIFT would be the correct way of moving so much cash

[dynamco]

https://www.bloomberg.com/profession...ng-river-runs/

[jimbo]

there have been several robberies in the past year of people transporting money changer monies to the bank on foot
this revelation of sheer quantity being carried means it's Open Season
normally you would think a legal electronic transfer SWIFT would be the correct way of moving so much cash

You still need to get it to the bank though to make a transfer.

Why don’t they just pay for a security van I have no idea though.

[shri]

Thanks for this topic ...

Light Reading for my bus commute:

It was apparent from the questionnaire responses that this phenomenon of legitimate cross-border
cash transportation was not well understood generally. In the questionnaire, countries were asked
to state which methods, in their experience, were most frequently used to transport legitimate
consignments of cash across their borders. A summary of the responses are shown in the chart
below. The responses showed that most countries were aware that air passengers and persons in
cars carry cash legitimately across borders. However, substantially fewer had any experience of
cash moving in cargo and mail for legitimate purposes, and yet huge amounts of cash (the equivalent
of tens, and sometimes hundreds of millions of US dollars in a single shipment) are transported
between major financial institutions by air cargo every day, shipments that are generally subject to
very little scrutiny by customs authorities.

http://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/...ation-cash.pdf

[shri]

Also from that PDF I linked to:

Major international currencies such as the US dollar and the euro are held in reserves away from the
countries where they are issued and printed. In the case of the US dollar, the Federal Reserve Bank
of New York (FRBNY) operates the Extended Custodial Inventory Programme, where US dollars still
in the ownership of the FRBNY are held in secure locations in segregated vaults owned and
managed by private sector banks in Frankfurt; Hong Kong, China; London; Singapore and Zurich.

Add this to the shit you learn every day...