Money Laundering

Session Summary

When is an act considered as money laundering? Joras provides insights into this criminal activity. With a playful thought experiment, he shows you how creative criminals can become. Through knowledge about these practices, you’ll gain insights that are applicable in the "legal" world and at the same time you’ll learn about the politicisation of money laundering, the geopolitical complexity and its consequences for the rest of the economy. Join Joras in this session and learn about money laundering.

Interaction

During the expert session, Joras Ferwerda engages the audience through various means, including a Q&A session, live demonstrations, and audience exercises with the Mentimeter app. He discusses the complexities of identifying money laundering in various sectors, focusing on transactions involving cash and real estate.

Ferwerda emphasizes the importance of vigilance for professionals, such as lawyers and notaries, in detecting suspicious activities related to property deals. Using real-life examples and techniques like under-invoicing or over-invoicing during real estate transactions, Ferwerda highlights the challenges in detecting money laundering activities and encourages the audience to stay informed on this topic.

Key Learnings

Staying Aware of Money Laundering Techniques

Gaining an understanding of money laundering methods, particularly those related to real estate transactions, is essential for professionals dealing with significant sums of money or complex assets. Be vigilant and stay informed to detect and prevent potential illicit activities.

Reporting Suspicious Transactions

Understanding the reporting requirements for large transactions and staying alert for signs of suspicious activity, even if transactions are slightly below thresholds, can help prevent money laundering. Professionals must remain diligent in their dealings to ensure ethical business practices.

Notaries as Financial Experts

Recognizing the unique position of notaries in detecting money laundering activities, particularly in real estate transactions, is crucial. Utilize your expertise and knowledge to identify and report any potentially illicit activities to prevent financial crimes.

Detailed session description

In this expert session, Joras Ferwerda explores various methods used for money laundering and discusses their respective advantages and disadvantages. While discussing the use of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin for illicit activities, he mentions that some individuals have already bought real estate using Bitcoins and that it could potentially become a more common practice in the future.

However, Ferwerda also highlights the challenges involved, such as difficulties in transferring large amounts of Bitcoin and concerns from notaries and real estate agents regarding suspicious transactions.

Ferwerda then shifts the focus to traditional methods of money laundering, like opening a cash-only business, such as a bar or restaurant, to launder money. He acknowledges that this method has been used historically and could still be effective today, especially for smaller transactions.

However, he also notes that it comes with the downside of having to pay taxes on the income earned.

The conversation then moves towards the subject of money laundering through art sales. Ferwerda explains how valuable paintings can be bought at auctions anonymously and sold for the same price while remaining anonymous.

He acknowledges that dealing with unscrupulous people or "witwas experts" could pose a risk, and encourages researching legitimate ways to launder money through academic channels.

Ferwerda shares his extensive experience in the field of money laundering research, having published numerous papers on this topic over nearly 20 years. He also discusses the challenges of dealing with small amounts of money in relation to money laundering and criminal activities.

He mentions the need for a network of people and tactics to move large sums of money across borders without raising suspicion.

As the conversation shifts, Ferwerda introduces the international war on drug money and its expansion from the United States to other parts of the world, specifically Africa. He explains that focusing on drugs themselves proved to be unsuccessful in the US, leading to a shift in focus towards financial flows associated with them.

Ferwerda emphasizes the importance of preventing illicit funds from leaving African countries and keeping them within their economies for development.

Ferwerda concludes the session by encouraging professionals to remain vigilant when dealing with transactions involving large sums or complex assets like real estate. He shares various money laundering techniques used during real estate transactions, such as under-invoicing or over-invoicing, and emphasizes that notaries are in an ideal position to detect any suspicious activity related to property deals. He also provides resources for attendees to expand their knowledge on this topic.

Throughout the session, Ferwerda stresses that engaging in money laundering activities is illegal and encourages legal and ethical business practices. It's important to remember that this conversation is for informational purposes only and does not condone or encourage such behavior.

Before you book

Questions about Money Laundering

Is this session interactive, or do people just watch?

It is interactive, and the block above says exactly how for this session. Nobody has to speak up who does not want to: the chat and the polls carry most of it, and the questions can come in anonymously.

Is this for beginners or for people who already know the subject?

When is an act considered as money laundering? Joras provides insights into this criminal activity. It is built for a general working audience: no prior knowledge is assumed, and people who already know the subject get the research and the practical side rather than an introduction.

Is Joras the right expert for this?

Joras Ferwerda is one of the experts we auditioned ourselves, and we produce every session so we see how each one lands. Participants rate this session 4.0 out of 5, across 109 responses, and rate Joras personally 4.2 out of 5.

How long does it take, and what do we have to prepare?

It runs 45 min / 15 min: the talk, then live questions. All you do is pick a date. We brief Joras, produce the session, host and moderate it, run the Q&A, and send you the report within an hour of the end.

Who can join, and where does it run?

A team, a department, an employee network or every single employee at once, with no cap and no per-seat price. It runs inside your own Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Google Meet, or on a branded page we build. No integration, no login, no company device or e-mail.

Can our global colleagues follow it?

The session is delivered in English, Dutch. You can add high accuracy live subtitles in 8, 16 or 24 languages, so everyone follows in their own. That is a paid option, priced by the number of languages you need.

Will our IT department have a problem with this?

No, and that is by design. There is nothing to install, nothing to integrate and no connection to your systems, so there is nothing for IT to validate: we join your own Teams, Zoom or Meet as a guest speaker, or we host a page and your people open a link. No software, no accounts, and no data of yours that we can reach. It is why hundreds of companies, among them some of the largest technology and financial firms in the world, were able to start within a day.

How does this work under GDPR?

We never receive or hold personal data about your employees. Because the session runs in your own environment, attendance and identity stay with you, and what we report back is aggregated: numbers, ratings and survey answers, not people. That is also why IT approval usually takes minutes rather than weeks.

What do we get afterwards?

You keep the recording and can share it internally. You also get attendance over time, participant ratings for the content and the speaker, the survey answers, and the topics your people asked for next.