British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission

Handling Dirty Money

Case Study: Borrowing Kane’s Dirty Money

Say you make your money legally from your food van and from your administrative job in a trust company. You know your brother, Kane, is a drug trafficker who does not have a job or other source of legitimate income but he always has excess cash. You want to build a small apartment building, but you’ve only saved half the money you need. Instead of going to the bank for a loan, you decide to get the loan from Kane. He offers to give you the money in return for joint ownership of the apartment building. Kane gives you the extra $250,000 you need and you build the apartment building. Later, you open a bank account from the proceeds of the building with both you and Kane as the account holders. The rent checks are deposited to this joint account and money is withdrawn from it for the building’s maintenance. In borrowing Kane’s dirty money and using it to fund a legal business, you have engaged in money laundering – you took money obtained through an illegal activity (drug trafficking) and changed it into a legal business asset (the apartment building). You have committed a crime.