Money laundering

A collection of U.S. dollar banknotes
Money launderingMoving the moneyNetwork studyUnited States

What Happened to the Other Dollars?

A $200 million monthly estimate became one of the most durable numbers in accounts of…

General cargo being handled beside a ship and trucks at the port of Cotonou.
Logistics and shippingMoney launderingNetwork studyPanamaTrade and transport

Seven Hubs, One Blind Spot: Where the Cargo and the Money Part Company

An electronics invoice arrived from Miami. In Colón, Nidal Waked used it to draw on…

A collection of U.S. dollar banknotes
BrokerageMexicoMoney launderingNetwork studyUnited States

The New Competitors: Chinese Money Networks and the Lebanese Brokers

In January 2021, an American operative named Edgar Joel Martinez-Reyes slipped across the southern border…

A collection of U.S. dollar banknotes
BrokerageColombiaCurrency exchangeMoney launderingMoving the money

Pesos, Dollars and Hawala: Where the Black Market Peso Exchange Meets Beirut

A textile shipment could be perfectly real while its payment belonged to another business entirely. Investigators following drug proceeds learned…

General cargo being handled beside a ship and trucks at the port of Cotonou.
BrokerageColombiaMexicoMoney launderingNetwork study

The Service Economy: Why a Cartel Would Hire a Lebanese Broker

One to five days: that was the swift settlement timetable American prosecutors documented when they unveiled the federal indictment of…

Robert Pelikán, Czech justice minister
EuropeInvestigations and enforcementMoney launderingNetwork study

What Europe’s Hezbollah Cases Actually Decided

On a cold late-November afternoon in 2018, inside the storied corridors of the Palais de Justice in Paris, presiding judge…

Entrance of the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig
Case fileEuropeInvestigations and enforcementMoney laundering

Germany Followed the Cash. Then It Followed the Files.

When German customs investigators unzipped the luggage of two Lebanese travelers during a routine airport checkpoint in early 2015, they…