Technology-Enhanced Methods of Money Laundering: Internet As Criminal Means

This book identifies and examines the novel ways in which money is laundered internationally through illegal activities on the internet, focusing on sales, payments, social media, online gaming, and tax misapplication. Technology-enhanced methods that enable money laundering are now a significant portion of malicious cyber activities and deterring its commission is a high order priority.

Although powered by modern tools, investigators, prosecutors, judges and regulatory agencies in most countries are not equipped to accurately detect, investigate and prosecute this type of criminal activity.   It makes a case for broader institutional and regulatory improvement, formulating a basis for detecting evolving money laundering schemes with multiple focuses on sales, payments, social media, online gaming, and tax misapplication. 

Revealing the newest techniques used by criminals, currently neglected by law enforcement in most countries, and discussesthe best approaches to combat these crimes, this book will be useful as a guide for law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, and others involved in efforts to curb online crimes.

Fausto Martin de Sanctis holds a Doctorate in Criminal Law from the University of São Paulo’s School of Law (USP) and an advanced degree in Civil Procedure from the Federal University of Brasilia (UnB) in Brazil. He was a Public Defender in São Paulo, from 1989-1990, and a State Court Judge, also in São Paulo, from 1990 and 1991. He is currently a federal appellate judge in Sao Paulo’s Tribunal Regional Federal – with jurisdiction over Sao Paulo and the Mato Grosso do Sul states. From April 2 to September 28 he was a fellow at Federal Judicial Center in Washington DC, USA. Judge De Sanctis was selected to handle a specialized federal court created in Brazil to exclusively hear complex cases involving finance and money laundering. He is a world known expert on this topic and he has been invited to participate in programs and conferences both in Brazil as well as internationally. Judge De Sanctis has published extensively about money laundering and related crimes.