Electronic Transfer of Funds: Smart Cards, Internet Banking and Wireless Communications
| Date | 01 March 1998 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb025858 |
| Published date | 01 March 1998 |
| Pages | 26-35 |
| Author | Daniel P. Murphy |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance |
Journal of Financial Crime — Vol. 6 No. 1 — Analysis
Electronic Transfer of Funds: Smart Cards, Internet
Banking and Wireless Communications
Daniel P. Murphy
'We live in a world in which our sovereignties
have to be pooled in order to save our individual
sovereignty'.1
Crimes are committed for personal reasons or for
profit. In any crime for a profit scenario the state
has an interest in removing the profit from the
criminal. Drug offences, other than simple posses-
sion, are the paradigm. People use drugs for a
variety of reasons but, at least in the illicit drug
trade, individuals sell drugs in order to make
money. Traditionally, this was a cash-based enter-
prise and, frequently, a misplaced investigative
opportunity. A state can attack the criminal profit
in order to attack the enterprise. When an illicit
criminal activity is undertaken for cash prosecutors
and investigators must look at this as an oppor-
tunity.2
Professor Robert Blakey, in the course of a dis-
cussion in March 1997, at Toronto's Osgoode
Hall, summarised four different criminal sanc-
tions.3
He advocated a concentrated attack against
criminal profits. States have quickly developed an
asset forfeiture or confiscation response towards
criminal proceeds of crime. This initiative is fre-
quently undertaken as an aspect in a concerted
investigation of the illicit drug trade. It is unfortu-
nate that some states limit their proceeds effort to
drug offences. That activity is a significant profit-
centred criminal activity but it is not the only
crime committed for profits. Proceeds of crime is
the common justification for a criminal investiga-
tion if laws allow for the state to confiscate all
proceeds of crime. Any criminal activity that is
undertaken for profit calls out for a determined
attempt to remove the profit from the criminal.
The last two decades have proved that the attack
against the profits from crime is as important as
the attack against the crime that gave rise to the
profits. Criminal justice needs to understand the
fact that crime is not a local phenomenon. This is
especially true when the proceeds of crime move
around the world.
Justice Laforest, of the Canadian Supreme
Court, in United
States
of
America
v
Cotroni
(1989) 1
SCR 1469, makes an important point about trans-
national crime when, at p. 1485, he states:
'The only respect paid by the international crim-
inal community to national borders is when
these can serve as a means to frustrate the efforts
of law enforcement and judicial authorities. The
trafficking in drugs, with which we are here
concerned, is an international enterprise and
requires effective tools of international co-opera-
tion for its investigation, prosecution and
suppression. Extradition is an important and
well established tool for effecting this co-opera-
tion.'
Extradition has been a well-used option in the
international community. This is especially true in
this century as efficient means of travel have
developed. In 1903, a person first flew an airplane.
Ninety-four years later we can fly from Europe to
New York for lunch. The shift in capital is even
greater. Money and proceeds of crime can move
around the globe in seconds. The problem is that
customary concepts of national sovereignty and a
revolution in wireless communications now
require states to re-evaluate how they respond to
the movement of criminal capital.
MONEY LAUNDERING INVESTIGATIONS
Typing 'http://www.ustreas.gov/treasury/bureaus/
fincen/bnkbeynd.html' into the internet will obtain
access to FinCen's4 description of the United
States' and money laundering effort. It sets out a
timeline overview of the American money laun-
dering developments since their initial law, the
Bank Secrecy Act. The past 25 years have resulted
in a system that depends upon cash transaction
reporting and a sophisticated analysis of such
reports as a law enforcement tool. A shift to elec-
tronic cash will significantly impact upon the tradi-
tional reliance upon cash transaction reports. In
addition, the ability immediately to transfer elec-
tronic cash over new telephone systems will also
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