Clarke, Thurston and Tigue, John J. Jr. Dirty Money: Swiss Banks, the Mafia, Money Laundering, and White Collar Crime. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975. 216 pages.

Written over 22 years ago, this one is still timely, but needs to be updated. It's an excellent survey of the entire range of illegal techniques involving the movement of money, and each chapter is illustrated with case histories. You have dirty money (the product of a criminal act) that needs to be laundered (disguised), and clean money that needs to be dirtied (corporate contributions to Nixon's 1972 campaign). There are Swiss banking laws, offshore banks competing with the Swiss, Mafia couriers who move cash across borders, and dummy shell corporations in Liechtenstein and Panama that are used to further disguise the money trail. (Pop quiz: If you are carrying lots of cash, should you lie on the U.S. customs declaration form? If you lie and they find the money, they get to keep it. If you don't lie, you can bring in as much as you like. But it had better be well-laundered, because you may spark their interest.) Two of the ten chapters are on "paperhanging" -- the market in counterfeit or stolen securities.

The authors know what they're talking about. Both worked in the U.S. Attorney's office in New York in supervisory roles, specializing in international business, tax fraud, and foreign banks. This office gets the action, because money transactions all go through New York at some point.
ISBN 0-671-21965-0

Extract the names from this source

Back to search page