One of the drawbacks (for the criminal), of real time laundering is the necessity somewhere along the line of face-to-face contact with third parties. In fact, agencies such as the AFP and the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre base many of their anti-money laundering activities on this principle.
For example, third party involvement of cash dealers such as financial institutions, bookmakers, TABs and casinos provide AFP investigators with documentary evidence and the opportunity for witness statements, and AUSTRAC with Significant Cash Transaction Reports on all cash transactions of $10,000 or more.
Particularly reliant on third party involvement is AUSTRAC’s Suspicious Transaction Report, which can be raised by a cash dealer at any time due to the unusual nature or circumstance of a transaction or the person or group of persons making the transaction, and does not depend on a transaction exceeding the $10,000 limit.3
From the launderer’s point of view, of course, the Internet does not provide any new methods of operation at this time. Its main attractions are that it is quicker, more diverse, and disintermediates users from third party involvement and regulatory oversight, while its uncharted nature and growing popularity provide opportunities to pass unremarked among the masses.
In August 1998, for instance, an Australian Bureau of Statistics survey found that 1.245 million households were hooked up to the Internet — 18 per cent more than in May and 46 per cent more than in February.4 While less than one per cent of these had used the Internet for banking purposes, nearly 35 per cent had used the telephone to access their bank accounts in the previous three months.5
Telephone banking, like EFTPOS machines, has given the public a sense of empowerment and control over their financial affairs, and has been adopted with vigour by bank customers because of its convenience and accessibility. Given the enthusiasm of Australians for new technology and of the financial sector to cut costs, it would appear likely that the popularity of similarly convenient Internet banking could soon undergo an exponential growth.
Detailed report link: here