Laundering as a Service

Money laundering is a process for concealing the origin of funds generated by illegal means. People generally associate money laundering with drug trafficking, gun smuggling, or corruption. But funds misappropriated by identity theft, phishing, and carding also have to be “laundered.” Today, the mushrooming of virtual money (or e-currency) makes the job easier when you need to eliminate traces of suspicious actions. In the past, E-Gold and WebMoney were frequently under suspicion and had to respond to serious allegations of having been used to transform “dirty money” into “clean money.”
But they are not unique; ECUMoney, Liberty Reserve, PerfectMoney, Pecunix, etc. are also on the scene. As with all digital gold currencies, these exchangers offer nonreversible transactions, which is a primary advantage when you want to manipulate money.
Today, websites proposing virtual money exchanges are numerous on the Internet. They are profitable for their owners because they are subject to significant exchange commissions. It is also relatively safe for the people offering these services. In the past, malware authors explained they created their programs only for educational purposes and were not responsible for any inappropriate use. Today administrators of such websites are trying to claim they are not liable for the origin of the transmitting money.
Here too, the network is turning professional, and many former crooks are now specializing in this field. In October 2004, the (continue reading...)