When The Irish Times revealed recently that arrests for money laundering in the Republic had surged – expected to reach 650-700 in 2024, a tenfold increase on 2018 – I immediately knew why, thanks to Rinsed.
In this engrossing, mind-blowing guide to the ways in which today’s technologies are facilitating turbo-scale crimes and money laundering, seasoned crime journalist Geoff White devotes a full chapter to Ireland’s significant footprint in this modern, murky, international gang-controlled world. The technologies that enable swift and handy cash transfers and the obscured movement of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether are just some of the tech tools of this lucrative trade.
In Ireland, White reveals, we’re doubly digitally damned with, first, an active fraud cybercrime-scape, which has duped both individuals and businesses into transferring money into scam accounts. Then, we also have a huge digital money laundering network of individuals, called mules, that allow their bank accounts to be used briefly for large digital transfers of sums. The money is quickly hustled along many more times in a money-obscuring technique called layering.
Many of the mules are young, lured by supposedly quick cash (generally never paid) without realising the seriousness of a money laundering conviction. This year’s arrests probably include Irish university students and others recruited via social media sites. Social media has a key, multilevel role in this dirty business, too.
These vast fraud and laundering networks take in billions annually and involve international co-operation between powerful gangs and extremely sophisticated hackers, some working for nation states such as North Korea or Russia. Two years ago, North Korea’s allegedly state-supported Lazarus gang was behind the biggest online heist you’ve never heard of, hacking a popular online game called Axie Infinity, and netting a staggering $625 million. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, the crime took just one minute and 55 seconds to execute.
Some of these grand thefts have unexpectedly dire implications. White says there is strong global intelligence that North Korea’s rapidly advancing nuclear weapons programme is half-funded by the cybercrime proceeds. On the other hand, Rinsed also introduces white-hat heroes, detectives and computer experts who’ve uncovered many crimes, made big arrests and gained intelligence to block other exploits.
As for Ireland’s apparent outsize laundering role? White notes that there’s another explanation: “Maybe they’re just paying more attention to it.” He says that if other countries, including the UK, had the skilled detectives, data gathering and focused police-work given by Ireland to this area, “perhaps we’d see thousands more convictions worldwide”.
