The Washing Machine: How Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Soils Us of Kochan, Nick on 24 May 2005
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Publisher : Texere Publishing
Language : English
Best Sellers Rank: #6,949,243 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #6,274 in Globalization & Politics #26,639 in True Crime (Books) #267,418 in Business & Money (Books)
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Customer Reviews: 3.5 3.5 out of 5 stars (16)
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Top Amazon Reviews
The last time I was involved in money laundering was when I forgot I had left a couple of dollars in the pocket of my pants and put them into the washing machine, only to realize when I transferred the pants to the dryer that I had, in fact, laundered some money. Other than that encounter, I had no knowledge whatsoever about, nor experience with, what is now referred to as "professional" and "criminal" money laundering. Of course, my activity was neither professional nor criminal. But, after reading Nick Kochan's book, "The Washing Machine," I now know a lot about a particular nefarious enterprise which is both professional and criminal. And, unfortunately, a continually growing threat to world peace and security. Mr. Kochan is just the right person to write this book. An investigative reporter, Kochan has investigated a number of financial frauds and scams for many years and has written for such prestigious publications as "The Economist," "Financial Times," and other well-respected media. He is also a well-known broadcaster who appears regularly on the BBC television and radio networks, and has served as a consultant to a number of British and international corporations on political and economic risk. Many ordinary readers may not at first see the relevance of the money-laundering problem to their daily life. Kochan will convince you otherwise. The problem is truly serious, non-endemic, and affects us all in a very direct way. Moreover, money laundering is not just a matter of "criminal" activity anymore, committed by those who simply want to hide their ill-gotten gains from the authorities, but money laundering is now used by international terrorists to hide their sources of revenue for the financing of their attacks on civilized societies. This raises the bar and should convince any citizen, whatever his or her position in any society or nation, to acquire some information about the current threat in order to help combat what has become an increasingly threatening situation. We are at risk. The world is at risk. The author of this book makes that clear. He provides the facts and asks the reader to consider the probabilities. Don't know anything about the Russian Mafia? Read and learn. Don't know anything about the reputable banks (many who advertise their services on American television) who "somehow" have been involved in the money-laundering schemes of criminals and terrorists? Read and learn. Don't know that some so-called "friends" of the United States, such as Ireland, Turkey, and Sri Lanka, are involved in terrorist finance? Read and learn. And on and on. You'll be surprised, and maybe somewhat depressed, with the facts that Kochan presents in his book. You will go deep into a world you probably don't know much about, the world of international business, the whole globalization thing you read about in the newspapers and magazines and most likely don't pay much attention to. You will learn how financial criminals and international terrorists can turn "dirty" money into "clean" money, often with the help of banks and other financial institutions with whom you are personally acquainted. And, you will learn why the battle against this type of activity is so difficult to win. The author of "The Washing Machine" has provided a number of resources to aid the reader in coming to grips with the subject. I always like it when the author of a nonfiction work provides us, the readers, with more resources to consult or pursue. In this case, Kochan includes a glossary at the end of the book so even the most inexpert of us can grasp any acronyms or terms currently used in discussing this subject. He also provides the reader with references (by specific source!), plus a bibliography and a topic index. I would think this book would appeal to anyone with an interest in the world economy, the controversial matter of globalization, the threat of international terrorism, organized criminal activity on a global scale, and/or the techniques of money laundering on a momentous scale, an interesting subject in itself. At the very least, this book made me aware of a problem that appears to be ubiquitous in today's world. Maybe more of us should pay attention to it. Before it is too late.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2005 by Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty
Money laundering is a gift-that-keeps-on-giving topic. Like other financial scams and money-related bad behavior, it keeps changing, growing and shifting as governments plug old holes in their regulations only to open new ones. As finance globalizes, minor nations compete to be snug havens for ill-gotten or tax-averse money, and bankers continue to be dissatisfied with their eight-figure bonuses, the opportunities and tools available for turning black money white will continue to morph and expand. This is a two-edged sword for any author wanting to concoct the authoritative text on the subject. On the one hand, there's so much to write about, and anything involving so many zeroes and so many shady characters can't help but be interesting; on the other hand, whatever s/he writes will be out-of-date in five years or less. Nick Kochan, a British journalist and financial reporter for such publications as the Financial Times and The Economist, has been cut by both edges of this sword. The Washing Machine is chock full of information and has some interesting stories to tell. Having been written in 2004-5, however, it can only speculate about the effects of the PATRIOT Act and its foreign analogues. The changes wrought by subsequent anti-terrorism legislation and the Dodd-Frank Act aren't even on its horizon. The author attempts a broad survey of the different flavors of money laundering, though (as you might guess from the subtitle) his main concern is how terrorist groups and supporters use the methods and vehicles of the megawealthy and the drug cartels to hide and clean their funds. He covers conflict diamonds, arms trafficker Victor Bout (a chapter less about laundering than Fun with Front Companies), private banking for kleptocrats, Colombian drug cartels (how quaint), and how Irish and Tamil terrorists installed the pipes that Mideastern terrorists now use to move their money around. It's a lot of ground to cover -- perhaps too much. If you've been following my reviews for awhile, you'll know I've been looking for a book about money laundering that actually explains how it's done. Kochan actually does spell out how some of the processes work, although he doesn't make it easy for the reader to follow. This isn't by any means the For Dummies intro to money laundering. You'll want to have explored this subject in other books (such as Crime School: Money Laundering) before you plow through this one. Which leads to my major quarrel with this book: it reads like a 280-page feature article in some serious newspaper. That style and tone works when the piece is just on the front page and a couple jump pages; it gets old after the first fifty pages here. Part of this is down to Kochan's no-doubt ingrained journalistic habit of squeezing as much information as possible into every paragraph. The chapter on Victor Bout, for instance, screams for some diagrams to help the reader sort out the tangle of shell companies and false fronts that the "Merchant of Death" used to cover his tracks. I can't help but think a couple simple graphics could better explain the Black Market Peso Exchange than do the blocks of prose the author throws at it. The processes of money laundering are deliberately opaque and confusing, and unfortunately, Kochan doesn't always succeed in making them less so. Still, there's a lot of good information in this book if you can only get to it. The bibliography is useful if you want to do further study, even though the sources are now more than ten years old. It's because of this that I struggled with the overall rating. I'll find it useful down the road (four stars), even though the prose made the reading a chore (two stars). Three stars it is, but with a pack of caveats you should keep in mind depending on your purposes for reading this. The Washing Machine throws you into the deep end of a very broad and deep subject. It will download a lot of information that was au courant a decade ago, but is now dated as the state of the art has marched on. As long as that works for you, and you already have some acquaintance with the subject, give it a try. Don't expect the road to be smooth or the going easy, but at least you'll come out more informed than you were going in.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2015 by Lance Charnes
Mr. Kochan explores the movement of money around the world and around communities plagued by drugs. A good read that isn't written in legalese or hard-to-follow language. Very accessible!
Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2013 by LadyNeal
This book is, ultimately, a naive and silly approach to a serious subject. I am afraid that the author comes too late to the game and brings too little. Worth a miss.
Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2006 by Arthur Anders
With huge swaths of the world's economy taking place in the black market, money laundering has turned into an intractable problemw with wide-ranging consequences. British journalist Nick Kochan offers an intriguing study of this shadowy world. He argues that laundering was an overlooked problem in the U.S. before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks pushed the issue to the fore. Indeed, he says, Americans were oblivious to the effects of dirty money. Kochan details the sordid sagas of Russian gangsters, Colombian kingpins and corrupt Mexican bankers. At times, his broad approach hinders his prose, and his examples aren't always as compelling as they should be. Still, we recommend this eye-opening study to anyone who deals with the global movement of money.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2006 by Rolf Dobelli
As some one who in their job has to consider the impact of financial crime and anti-money laundering (and not just anti-terrorist financing), I believe the importance of books like this cannot be under-estimated. Allowing the decline of financial banking systems by recycling the proceeds of crime plus inadequate international controls allowing the transfer of the proceeds of kleptocracy governments (the Abacha administration in Nigeria being the main one covered here) and causing the destruction of their domestic eceonomies, has a real domino effect on the robustness of the global economy. The book covers all the main signposts and cases seen in recent years and so in terms of content is spot on for the historical aspects. The core problem and why this book fails as a good read or a primer for action is the author comes across as totally overwhelmed by the material. Chapter after chapter seems an attempt to brain dump all the data he has read in his research on the specific subject. This is demonstrated by each chapter relying heavily on a few key government papers or Reports of Enquiry. The consequence is a very piecemeal style of writing and the fact that so many chapters have numerous references to content in other chapters shows a lack of order and discipline in compiling and blending the themes and overall story. As a general background read and primer to the subject it is fine though for people who do not encounter such financial crime and laundering in their work, better use of some simple examples and diagrams to explain the scams would I think have helped considerably, especially on the use of cross border flows and sham structures. The book by the end is heavy on case data especially Citibank who come out very badly in their actions over the years but light on how effective the many checks and balances put in by regulators since 9/11 especially could be applied to work better. One cannot help but feel the current regimes in many countries will only catch the small fry and the incompetent and a radical rethink is needed. The end story of how the Irish republic government has applied different tactics relying on extracting money and assets off the crooks than putting them in jail initially is one of the few cases I have seen of such a rethink to date.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2006 by Siriam
The Washing Machine takes you inside the extremely convoluted world of shady financial deals and shell games with money--commonly known as money laundering--on an international scale. Kochan provides dozens of case histories, and explains how each of them worked. He also explains, in detail, how particular operations funded particular terrorist groups, who did what, and how they got caught. Kochan doesn't just make the case that big money laundering operations finance terrorism and let it go at that. He also shows the deleterious effects on national economies. Nor does he simply talk about money per se. He provides the full picture of how terrorists use everything from diamonds to cigarettes to fund their operations. Kochan also explains what law enforcement agencies, banks, and other concerned parties are doing to crack down on the fraud, corruption, and theft that are part and parcel of the money laundering problem. He even touches on corruption and complicity within government agencies. In the United States, this is an enormous problem (and well-documented)--though Kochan doesn't go there. He does provide us with a useful glossary and an impressive bibliography. The fact this book is very well researched becomes evident shortly after cracking the cover. You probably have an opinion about September 11, the Bush administration, the Iraqi War, the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, and several other of today's issues. If you want an informed opinion--rather than just an opinion--on these issues, you need the information contained in this book. You may not change your viewpoint, but you will at least have a viewpoint built on something other than political ether. Now, did you notice I did not write "Patriot Act" in the preceding paragraph? Before reading this book, I would have. I didn't know that the name of the act is an acronym (and most people don't know an acronym must, by definition, spell a word--it isn't just a mnemonic or abbreviation) for Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Interrupt and Obstruct Terrorism." If you already knew that, great. You'll find plenty of other things to learn in this book. Where this book falls down is its writing quality. The mangled syntax and incorrect punctuation render some parts of it incomprehensible and others just hard to read. If Kochan is planning a second printing, he should first have a good copyeditor has correct the huge number of mechanical errors in the text. Standard Written English (SWE) and style guides exist for a reason. So, it's an effort to read this book because of editorial sloppiness. However, the research is thorough and the information is eye-popping. Sometimes, you have to work a little harder for some things--but the payoff is worthwhile. The understanding you can obtain from this book is one of those things.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2005 by M. L Lamendola
Kochan's book is a good grounding introduction in the phenomenon of international money-laundering and I would reccommend it for any individual starting off in the area of financial crime. However, for the experienced practitioner nothing in the book is new and indeed some of the case studies presented by Kochan are in places more anecdotal than scientific. Therefore, if you are seeking advice and guidance on the features and characteristics of the most up to date thinking in the area I would reccommend more academic publications such as the FATF reports. Nevertheless the individual case studies are illuminating even if they do indulge a little in the sensational.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2007 by Lars Seneca