Case Scenario:
Cavos Metdolas ia a money laundering organization for a drug cartel in Wisconsin and Illinois. A money laundering method that they use is to prepay, from an Internet bank account, balances on credit cards controlled by the organization. The credit card companies will send refund checks back to the credit card holder when the positive balances remain unused. The card owners have addresses listed in Argentina, Columbia, and the U.S. Once the refund checks are received from the credit card companies, they are deposited into legitimized accounts.
Metdolas has been using 1,000 credit cards in the scheme. There are only 30 different "real" card owners. He has a private banking relationship with First Bank of Boston through its Brazilian shell company, Perzola. Staff are able to write checks from the Perzola account within U.S. borders using their shell company's correspondent account at First Bank of Boston.
What is the weakest point in this money laundering scheme?
- After reading the material several times, I am still having trouble coming up with what the weakest point is.