No need to conflate this Halawa network with Ukraine. It’s a very interesting process. The way it generally works is that if you want to give money to someone in Libya for example you don’t need a bank. You speak to a guy in Brooklyn who takes the money, then contacts a counterpart in Libya who gives money to the recipient. Each taking a cut of course. The Brooklyn guy guarantees payment to the Libyan associate, but the sender and recipient are both off the hook for debts. It’s an interesting way to move money around without having to literally move it immediately, or all at once. At some point the books have to balance out, but that system of trading is the basic premise.
Seems the problem here is that they used banks to move money, and lied to the banks about their business and purposes. It has traditionally been done without bank transfers and the “books” can get balanced in many ways - someone can buy a diamond ring, or pay for a container full of food to be delivered somewhere etc. It’s a way to move money and using other means, including barter, to balance everyone’s books.
In the General/Chat forum, on a thread titled Three Men Charged With Running Hawala Scheme Responsible For Illicitly Moving More Than $65 Million Between The United States And The Middle East, monkeyshine wrote: EXCERPT:
"No need to conflate this Halawa network with Ukraine."I think it's important to note that this isn't a single ethnicity or issue but should be interpreted to be internationally neutral. I originally mentioned the Ukraine because I had just read a concise description of how the FTC money laundering with Ukraine took place and when I saw this 'Hawala' I thought we needn't rely on separate terms by ethnicity - money laundering is still money laundering. I was unable to find the FTC/Ukraine post which I found so informative - it's on FR somewhere.