Money laundering is a criminal phenomenon that generates harmful effects on society.
Name: ANDRE LOVATTI
Publication date: 05/11/2020
Examining board:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| ROBSON ZUCCOLOTTO | Examinador Externo |
| ROGERIO ZANON DA SILVEIRA | Examinador Interno |
| TACIANA DE LEMOS DIAS | Examinador Interno |
| THALMO DE PAIVA COELHO JUNIOR | Presidente |
Summary: Money laundering is a criminal phenomenon that generates harmful effects on society. Crime is
consummated through the incidence of methods, trends and techniques on the dirty product in order to
hide it. These sets of artifices are called typologies. Within the broad spectrum of typologies that money
launderers use to make the product of illicit origin look legal, Alternative Remittance Systems (ARS)
stand out, mechanisms that are used worldwide to send efficiently, quickly and unbureaucratic, values
from one country to another. Historically, ARS have been constituted as legal instruments of remittance
of values, mainly because they reach the places of poor financial and electronic infrastructure, where
the financial institutions have little economic interest in acting, or conflicting places, where the presence
of the State is not evident. Despite this humanitarian bias, ARS are also widely used as instruments for
laundering money because their characteristics serve as concealment purposes. ARS are systems
composed of several methods, with Hawala being the best known of them worldwide. In Brazil, this
mechanism is known as “dólar-cabo”. Sending money abroad via “dólar-cabo” is a crime of currency
evasion and can be a crime of money laundering. Generally, these crimes are investigated by the
Federal Police's financial crime enforcement units that lack scientific material to support investigative
activity, mainly due to the absence of case studies. The main objective of this study was to identify and
gather investigative elements related to the crime of money laundering that uses Alternative Remittance
Systems as instruments to conceal or disguise the illicit product to serve as a guide for criminal
investigation activity. In theoretical terms, the research was supported by theories on money laundering
and on the typology of Alternative Remittance Systems, especially that of the world-renowned Hawala
method, and of the “dólar-cabo”, a widespread method in Brazil. As for scientific methods and
procedures, the qualitative approach was used, using techniques of documentary research, literature
review, argumentative analysis and content analysis. The results made it possible to compile
investigative elements that could guide the investigator in the criminal investigation activity. From the
results, as a technological product, a compilation of guidelines and illustrative schemes was prepared,
serving as didactic material to be disseminated in the professional training courses of the Federal Police
and in the Research and Financial Analysis Courses of the National Police Academy. The research was
developed within Line 2 - Technology, innovation and operations in the public sector and is part of the
Complementary Project - training, dissemination of technical production and technical services.
