Triads and Tribulations: The Worldwide Effects of Organized Crime and Money Laundering

Transnational criminal groups (TCGs) present an interesting problem for the international community. They operate without boarders, engaging in a wide range of illicit activities from human trafficking to cyber crime to money laundering. Often time's these groups, especially the largest ones have thousands and thousands of members all working to grow the organization and make it more successful. Most TCG's are known for their horrendous actions concerning murder, drug and human trafficking, and corruption, however I would like to cover one of the most important operations that TCG's engage in: money laundering. Without this important process, TCG's would have a difficult time utilizing all of their wealth gained from illicit activities, and the negative affects it has on the world are quite remarkable.

 

 Most people have heard of the phrase 'dirty money' before. Despite the picture above, this is not what that phrase describes. Dirty money describes money that has been obtained in an unlawful or illegal way. This basically means that most of the profit that a TCG makes from it's illicit activity is dirty money. Money laundering is the process of legitimizing that money so that the organization can use it. According to the article I read about the triads and their history, money laundering has been a large part of what they are known for, at times even laundering money for the state of China. The Triads are a massive transnational criminal group, with millions of members worldwide, and over 250,000 in Hong Kong alone according to the article. An organization of that size has a massive amount of money that it gains through it's illegal transactions, and so it needs to legitimize that money in order to fund its operations.

Many people know what money laundering is, but most probably do not know how serious of a problem for the international community it can be. According to this article, between 500 billion and 1 trillion dollars are laundered every year by TCG's. It is a huge problem and collective action is required by the international community in order to combat it. Many states have banking regulations that limit an individuals or group's ability to remain anonymous while making large deposits and withdrawals. However even with these regulations the money launders are not overly inconvenienced. 

The effects of money laundering touch everyone, from citizens in developing countries, to people in the United States. Dirty money is untaxed money, so when money launderers like the Triad's succeed, we all lose. The missing tax money that is expected due to the billions of dollars that are laundered have to be made up by honest citizens. A developing countries progress is slowed by the fact that many enterprises that start up in these countries can be financed by dirty money, especially banks, so when the honest individuals with money at stake hear this, they withdraw their clean money for fear of losing the insurance of it. Since developing countries do not have protective regulations in place, they are prime targets for TCG's looking for a way to legitimize their money, and are desperate enough for the money that they are often willing to look past how all of that money was accrued in the first place.

The bottom line is without money laundering, transnational criminal groups such as the Triads would not be able to be profitable. If they cannot clean their money, they have few options on how to use it without being detected by the powers that be. It is a problem that affects all of us, and it is often overlooked in favor of some of the more gruesome crimes that TCG's commit. The international community needs extreme levels of cooperation in monitoring this threat in order to gain any kind of traction over TCG's.