Money Laundering in El Salvador
In summary, here are the facts:
- El Salvador is "potentially fertile ground for money laundering," especially given its central role in finance throughout the region, and given dollarization of the economy.
- Large currency transactions "could involve the proceeds of international narcotics trafficking." But in case you're not reading well between the lines, "It is believed that money laundering proceeds may be controlled by narcotics-traffickers or organized crime." Now why would you have a belief about the origins of a money laundering problem that is only potentially a problem?
- Despite this belief that money laundering exists, and that it may be related to narcotics trafficking, State can't put anything concrete about it in this report because, rather conveniently, there were no arrests for money laundering in 2004, and in fact there's only been one conviction in the past five years that the Financial Intelligence Unit in the Attorney General's office has been functioning.
