How do we wash the “dirty Baghdad dollar”? A clearer picture of 1,000 Iraqi methods for money launde

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[size=52]How do we wash the “dirty Baghdad dollar”? A clearer picture of 1,000 Iraqi methods for money laundering[/size]

[size=45]A few years ago, the international community began to impose restrictions on bank transfers from Iraq abroad, whether in banks in Lebanon or Eastern Europe. Groups that had large “illegal” sums inside Iraq invented many ways to “store illicit money,” which is known as Legally, “laundering dirty money into legitimate money,” and no senior Iraqi official found an appropriate word to describe what is happening other than saying that these “smart Iraqi ghosts” who have imaginary profits are inventing a thousand new ways to evade prosecution, even going as far as manipulating “imaginary” marriage dowries. “And establishing hotels and establishing private universities, in addition to purchasing the most expensive jewelry and thousands of apartments and real estate...etc.[/size]
[size=45]Washing in 3 stages!
The United Nations defines money laundering in the 1988 Vienna Agreement as “the transfer or transfer of funds with the knowledge that they are derived from a crime, with the aim of concealing the illicit source of the funds and escaping legal consequences.”[/size]
[size=45]The process of money laundering has methods to camouflage and cover up the path of the money and where it came from, and to mislead prosecution efforts, and also “integration” whereby a source that appears to be legitimate is found in which to store the criminal’s money and appear legal, according to a document published by the United Nations in 2012.[/size]
[size=45]For example, cash earned from drug sales is divided into small amounts and then deposited by a “money broker” and then transferred to other accounts in exchange for services to front companies.[/size]
[size=45]How do you wash “a million corrupt people”?
To simplify the matter, an associate with a corrupt million dollars from drug trafficking or an illegal commission from government embezzlement converts the large sum into “small” payments to shell companies, providing various services.[/size]
[size=45]How much is Iraq washing and what happened in 2023?
In practice, in 2007, Iraq took the first step to reduce money laundering by establishing an anti-money laundering office, which collects and analyzes information, and creates cooperation with relevant local and international bodies.[/size]
[size=45]According to government reports, international and local money transfers are one of the most used channels for money laundering, reaching their peak in 2019.[/size]
[size=45]In a previous statement by Representative Hadi Al-Salami, Iraq sold 40 billion US dollars in the currency auction, but this amount was offset by imports of only 14 billion dollars, and the difference was laundered money.[/size]
[size=45]In 2023, Iraq joined the Egmont Group of Financial Investigation Units, to strengthen efforts to combat corruption and money laundering. The Egmont Group includes 167 countries that work to facilitate the exchange of information on criminal records, money laundering and terrorist financing at the international level.[/size]
[size=45]According to the employees, the old Iraqi form of money laundering is the purchase of real estate assets, which has worsened in recent years as a result of suspicious funds being kept inside Iraq with the new restrictions recently imposed on foreign transfers.[/size]
[size=45]Financial retention after America’s sanctions and “cash storage.”
Network 964 asked two retired senior financial officials, one of whom was in the Financial Supervision Authority, about these laundering methods, and they described a number of methods, reasons, and sources.[/size]
[size=45]One of these two employees gave a shocking example of the “retention” of that money, that a group involved with a large amount of dollars was forced to buy large numbers of apartments in Baghdad and Erbil, not for housing purposes, but to “store cash” that could not be deposited in banks, which began... Examination and investigation procedures have been tightened in conjunction with the US sanctions imposed on a number of Iraqi banks and companies.[/size]
[size=45]Money launderers have devised new methods, including dividing the money into small portions among a large number of people with small business interests, to recycle it and then recover it for small fees. One employee said, “Among these are celebrities on social media.”[/size]
[size=45]The two employees said that the Iraqi government agencies concerned with tracking money laundering methods reached a state of complete incapacity one day. One of them said that he “heard a prominent official say, after hearing a summary of a report that was monitoring fraudulent methods, that the Iraqis will develop a thousand methods of laundering whenever we develop methods of harassment and persecution.” “.[/size]
[size=45]Where does dirty money come from in Iraq?
According to the two sources, influential parties collect the salaries of large numbers of fictitious employees every month and transfer them to the market, along with fictitious government contracts or large commissions linked to actual contracts, in addition to the dollar and drug trade.[/size]
[size=45]Although the aforementioned sources of funds have declined over the past years as a result of the control operations carried out by the government, these measures themselves were in the face of a “solid wall of influence.”[/size]
[size=45]Ahmed Saddam - economic expert:
Money laundering in Iraq occurs in several ways, the most prominent of which is purchasing real estate at inflated prices, or even establishing companies or offices that exist on the ground but do not engage in real economic activity, to camouflage drug money and other things.[/size]
[size=45]Laundering is done through purchasing luxury cars or gold bullion, as well as purchasing orchards or agricultural land, and other methods of disposing of money on paper and converting it into assets.[/size]
[size=45]There are no estimates or accurate data on the amount of laundered money, but if we rely on what was stated by the Parliamentary Finance Committee in the previous parliament, which estimated the “volume of waste” at up to 10 billion dollars annually, then this money could be converted into assets considering it laundered.[/size]
[size=45]Drug assets:
Drug money is converted into projects and assets, and if we rely only on the number of traffickers convicted of drug cases, which is estimated at about 7 thousand, and if we assume that the volume of activity for each of them is one million dollars annually, it can be said that the size of the drug trade on average is about 7 billion dollars annually. .[/size]
[size=45]Money laundering sometimes takes place, even through marriage dowries, through the payment of large amounts that are later recovered after the divorce to pay for certain deals.[/size]
[size=45]A very high dowry (in millions of dollars) reveals illicit money if there is no project or income to match the couple.[/size]
[size=45]Banks do not accept any deposit that is not compatible in amount with the income of the deposit holder, so money laundering occurs there. Illegal traders essentially avoid dealing with banks, even if we assume for the sake of argument that banks do not place restrictions on receiving deposits.[/size]
[size=45]Mustafa Akram - economic expert:
There are many methods that are used to conduct money laundering operations in Iraq.[/size]
[size=45]Previously, the political class or other parties carried out money laundering through private banks in Lebanon.[/size]
[size=45]They then headed to European banks, but American sensors discovered these operations and eliminated them.[/size]
[size=45]Celebrity support:
After global restrictions on money laundering operations, Iraqis turned to money laundering by purchasing real estate, whether in Baghdad or the provinces.[/size]
[size=45]The second popular method now for money laundering operations is supporting well-known entities and personalities who have various sources of work, such as simple companies, bloggers, and others.[/size]
[size=45]These operations give legitimacy to these funds to be reused or deposited in banks officially and legally.[/size]
[size=45]Letter of Guarantor - Economic Expert:
Under the current circumstances, most methods of money laundering are available in the Iraqi market, including, for example, purchasing real estate, opening bank accounts, purchasing financial assets, investing in the banking and real estate field, opening new investments in the commercial field, and purchasing gold. Jewelry and more.[/size]
[size=45]There are other ways by investing in private universities, residential complexes, hotels and restaurants.[/size]
[size=45]Find the source
Estimating the amount of money seized illegally in Iraq requires the efforts of specialized governmental and international institutions, by researching the sources of that money, whether they are seized public funds, or files of bribes received by officials and employees in the public sector, which are Sources that create large financial revenues, through legal and administrative violations in ministries, governorates, and public institutions.[/size]
[size=45]Some figures involved in corruption cases have resorted to using marriage dowries to launder illicit money, with the aim of covering up the inflation of the wealth of some people and their families. This process is done by inflating the amount of the marriage dowry and recording it in marriage contracts to cover up the inflation of wealth, or by transferring money outside the country.[/size]
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