National Threat Assessment 2008. Organised Crime - Politie

These are so-called ‘ABC transactions’ or sales carousels. 49 An investigation
based on data from the Amsterdam Land Registry revealed that surprising price
increases occurred for 351 buildings in the 2004 to 2005 period, which could
indicate that criminal proceeds were being laundered. However, this is only a
small part of the total number of transactions. For the four largest cities –
Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht – an analysis of the January
2000 to March 2006 period showed that 1.3%, 4.5%, 3.5% and 1.6% of
transactions, respectively, concerned owner-occupied houses that were sold
three times or more. To what extent these were actually ABC transactions or
sales carousels is unknown.
3.6.4 Criminal organisation
There is a difference between investments made by criminal organisations
(as a group) and investments in property by individual members of these
organisations. For the criminal organisations identified by IPOL the focus is
on investments by the group. The same applies to the role of financial service
providers: their role in money laundering for criminal organisations is of
prime importance.
Financial service providers are sometimes part of the criminal organisation,
and they sometimes play a supporting role for several organisations. They are
primarily called in for their expertise, and some of them have been working for
the same organisations for years. These service providers often have normal jobs
in the legal financial world. There were several occasions when criminals were
maintaining strategic contacts in the legal financial world. There are examples
of contacts with bank employees, tax and legal consultants and foreign bank
managers. Criminal organisations seem to prefer small offices and lone traders,
as they are economically more vulnerable and therefore easier to pressurise.
But employees of major offices can also be contacted. Cases of threats against,
violence against or even liquidations of financial service providers have
been identified, but this does not appear to be common practice. Criminal
organisations almost always use financial service providers from the same
cultural background.
49
A building on Geldersekade in Amsterdam was a good example: the price of this small building
went from € 108,000 (November 1995) to € 82,000 (August 1996), € 83,000 (January 1997),
€ 166,000 (October 1999), € 295,000 (March 2000), € 700,000 (June 2005), and eventually to
the € 1.3 million that the municipal organisation NV Stadsgoed paid on December 30th 2005.
chapter 3 – Fraud and money laundering
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