Making illegal money is most commonly associated with breaking into a place, stealing goods to go and sell, shop lifting, not paying for a service or trading in illicit substances. However, illegal money does have other faces well hidden.
Some of these hidden faces are often found in settings that usually involve trust and commonly manifest as
Fraud
This is making money by defrauding others and often involves misrepresenting facts or withholding information to gain financially. The most common ways being the ones where corporate executives falsify documents, divert monies or make “deals” on the side with others for their own financial gain by abusing their positions of trust.
Knowing the system or the right persons in office and using this for financial gain is not a business flex. It is a crime as the intent is clear and that it is to steal money that should go for other purposes or to other people.
Using, sharing or manipulating the laid down procedures in procurement or payment systems for monetary gain is one of the hidden faces of illegal money making and is unfortunately becoming rather common and near to acceptable.
Money laundering
This is probably one of the most misunderstood, accepted and widely ignored forms of crime because it is something that we have become inoculated against thanks to the on screen “under-cover action” movies. The scenes that play evolving around finding and catching the culprits turning “dirty” money collected from a crime into “clean” money, is just entertainment.
This illegal moneymaking move is sometimes right in front of us operating in normal going concerns in our neighbourhoods and some of us have become immune to it. However, not all businesses are money laundering but chances are that a filling station, clothing boutique, casino, home goods store, restaurants, transport company or an event organizer near you is and can get mired in illegal money making.
Scamming
This is now becoming more and more apparent and the most reported way that illegal money is made. This is probably because scams do tend to come to our attention faster as they are rife in these days of the internet and AI. Also, it is more and more likely to occur these days due to our sharing personal data on the apps we download and can no longer function without in our daily life.
Our personal information is so much easier and faster to access these days and used to make money. The immediate access points being the mobile phones apps we download and use, the financial institutions we belong to, the village banking and credit groups, the online market places, the newsletters we sign up for and sometimes the places where we worship and share personal information.
There are people out there that are busy collecting and using your personal data without permission to gain financial benefit or commit fraud so do stay vigilant.
