Geldwäscherei mit Derivaten von Wolfgang Hafner und Gian Trepp

4. Interview with David Kenmir, Executive Director, Securities and Futures Authority SFA
Q: Is there any evidence about money laundering with derivatives?
A: There are more suspicions than evidence.
Q: There are some cases mentioned in the book of Bosworth/Saltmarsh
A: I’m not aware of it - to be honest. We certainly had instances were we had seen odd things going
on in derivative firms using derivative-contracts that we refereed to NCIS, but you never find out
what is going on next because NCIS doesn’t tell you the way its going. So it’s suspicion rather than
anything else...
Q: How is it done and who does it?
A: Derivatives are really not different to any other financial products.
Q: But doesn’t speculation - and derivatives are instruments for speculation - attract dirty money?
A: Derivatives are only another way of making investments. The only part different to other
instruments is that there is gearing involved, but apart from that there is really no difference to other
instruments like equities and so on.
Q: I also spoke to Anthony Blunden from CSFP and he told me, that there are some corporations
that launder money with derivatives. Especially with Eastern corporations it seems to be very
difficult to find out, what the background of trade is. Is then also money laundered by OTCderivatives?
A: It could be done by different instruments. It could be done by OTC-derivatives, it could also be
done by swaps, by exchange, it could be done off-exchange, by commodities. Money laundering is
possible anywhere. The easiest way is perhaps with writing options. You can pay your premium
with cash if you don’t mind loosing your money.
Q: Of course, if only one broker does the whole Business for you then you can make different
contracts: The contract with the dirty money is going to loose and the other one is going to win...
A: That’s right. And it really is an old story. The people that want to do this are quite clever. They
can always get advice from somewhere and can always put together a strategy in whatever market
they are operating. That will allow them to do whatever they want. So it is probably also the case
with new products. They will also become accessible and used by people to do things that they are
not allowed to do. But that is not necessarily only money-laundering, it could also be tax avoidance.
Q: But how is the attitude from the people of the city against money-laundering? Someone from the
Police told me, that the people in the city are amoral pragmatics. That means, they are not at all
against it, if someone launders money.
A: I do not think, that that is wholly fair. I think that most firms take their reputation very seriously
and if you look at the history of problems concerning the financial market in the last few years it is
usually a combination of individual or a small number of individuals in a firm causing huge
problems to the firm. And sometimes they are helped by poor management or by a poor controlenvironment.
It is unfair too say that all employees...
Q: But they say money is money...
A: Yeah, some of them do. But firms are very conscious about their reputation, because there are
many markets and you can choose wherever you want to go and deal in any product you want and
one of the things you will base your decision on is what the reputation of the firm is like. The vast
majority of firms are only interested in legitimate deals for genuine customers.
Q: Do you have records about dealings?
A: Actually we have a range of records. We have daily transaction-records based on dealings and