Hawala

Like, "Oh, we sanction them." I hear this all the time.

Like, "Iran's bleeding, they're broke, they can't get money." It's like- Have you not seen the Hawala system? Have you not seen cryptocurrency? They have no problem getting money.

Um, but it's like we live in this world where people are good faith actors, right? So if you can't use an account anymore, you're not gonna use it, you're a good faith actor.

But if you're someone shady, you're gonna be like, "Well, what's my workaround? How am I gonna make this work? How am I gonna get the cash?" And of course, terrorists, criminals, all of them find the way to do that.

There are lots of cases, more and more, and it's going to become something important.

But as we speak, the main way of moving money around is this Havala system and the brokers who are swapping this cash.

Bitcoin and crypto assets in general represent a very small fraction of this.

If we were to accept the usual evaluation of money laundering in the world, which is really something that is not very accurate.

It's like a sort of Hanseatic League for the 21st century.

This group has 532 members and it's used the tried and tested Hawala system, which is You know, like the Arab, pretty much the same version as this Chinese flying money system we got deep into last year to whiz cash between 25 countries.

Bright Sea Examiner quote, when a criminal lodges cash with a Hawala broker in one country, another Hawala in a separate country supplies the same sum of cash minus a commission to the intended recipient.

This bypasses the regulated financial industry, where transactions above a certain amount are flagged to authorities and records are kept of transactions and those involved.

When it comes to the Kinnehans, their lead money guy is actually already behind bars.

Yeah.

You know, it's not all that different than, you know, Hawala to a degree, Hawala in the Middle East.

In fact, you know, it involves that whole interplay between Bulk currency, currency conversion, purchase of a legitimate asset, tractors, let's just say, because that was always, you know, I felt like I was always seeing when I was looking at the problem set in Dubai, for example, you would see these guys purchase like 10 John Deere tractors in the heyday.

Wow.

He's trying to create markers and it's really a cool concept.

But as I was going over it in my head, you know, I was thinking about the number of times in my career going back to Chapo Guzman, but moving forward to you know, modern day looking at the organizations that have gone into crypto all over the world, not exclusive to Mexico.

I mean, throughout the Middle East, where you have this like intersection of Hawala with crypto.

And, you know, in the old days, you could go to a Hawala shop and there would be You know, millions of euro, millions of dollars, millions of won behind walls, behind safes that they would exchange out if the right person showed up with the code that somebody in another city had called and said, here's the code, right? Or sent a picture of the code via email.

In fall 2007, Ryan befriended Hassan Sharini, a Persian-Canadian known to police since 1997.

Sharini opened a new door for Ryan, the Hawala Network, a trust-based money transferring system dating back to the 8th century and still operating around the world today.

Hawala, also called Hundi, operates on trust and brokers, the Hawaladars.

A client hands a Hawaladar cash and a fee.

They agree on a code.

The broker relays that code and the details to a broker located where the recipient of the transfer lives.

Wedding didn't look nervous.

Agents said he acted like a tourist.

End of m-es la das hawala is a network of trusted financial intermediaries that manage the sending of funds worldwide without the need for electronic registration or physical transport of banknotes.

banknotes.Final de MS LEDA Sawala es una red de intermediarios financieros de confianza que gestionan el envío de fondos a nivel mundial sin necesidad de registro electrónico ni transporte físico de billetes.

El sistema implica un acuerdo entre dos intermediarios conocidos como Hawaladars, ubicados en diferentes lugares.

The system involves an agreement between two intermediaries known as Hawaladars, located in different locations.

El sistema implica un acuerdo entre dos intermediarios conocidos como Hawaladars, ubicados en diferentes lugares.

Uno de los Hawaladars recibe una suma de dinero en efectivo y el otro se compromete a entregar la misma cantidad, menos la comisión, al destinatario.

One of the Hawaladars receives a sum of cash and the other agrees to deliver the same amount, minus the commission, to the recipient N.

Uno de los Hawaladars recibe una suma de dinero en efectivo y el otro se compromete a entregar la misma cantidad, menos la comisión, al destinatario.

Every penny of it.

We brought this up when we did the episode about the Hawala Network, right? Correct.

That this literally is describing in many ways the episode we did, which was about the Hawala Network, just so people understand it's pretty much the transfer of money from person to person, right? Which is almost, is so impossible to go on to stop.

Right.

There was a, and I mean, not that I love quoting the UN, but some of the reports are interesting to read.