I tailored the content to the needs of the target audience; they were interested in identifying and interdicting money laundering practitioners. The classes I offered:

• Conducting a Successful Money Laundering Investigation; I knew what techniques would expose money laundering's weakest points, and how they could be exploited by criminal investigators. The class also detailed the more esoteric techniques. Many law enforcement agents have never worked in a commercial business, and are not aware of what indicia of money laundering activity are inconsistent with the conduct of a commercial trade or business. My role was to explain what these "red flags" were, and where to look for them.
  

• Russian Organised Crime Money Laundering; as a Russian-American, I was intensely interested in the post-Soviet (1991) era rise of Russian Organised Crime groups, as they enlisted former Soviet agents, experienced in covert activities, as private money laundering professionals. As they began to infiltrate the Caribbean tax havens that I had frequented for a decade, I observed how their operations borrowed from the tried-and-true methods of drug money launderers. These details formed the basis of the subject matter of the class.
  

• Money Laundering Aspects of Maritime Smuggling; having represented many clients whose income came from smuggling narcotics, via private motor vessels and sailboats, into North America, I was intimately familiar with the techniques preferred by them to place, layer and integrate their criminal profits, for I had, by and large, been the one to perform that function for them.
  

• Money Laundering Aspects of Aviation Smuggling; As enforcement improved, many clients switched their operations to air smuggling, a more efficient method, with only a three or four per cent chance of interdiction. Again, I was deeply involved, and worked on the client's behalf, understanding the unique nature of both the smuggling operations, and the bulk-cash smuggling aspects as well.

The Use of the Internet in Money Laundering Investigations; beginning around 1995, when commercial websites, databases, images, and other information sources began to appear on the Internet, I offered
all the little-known resources which could possibly aid investigators in their quest to obtain information on suspected money launderers and their clients.

Knowing from personal experience just how difficult it was to identify bulk-cash smuggling operations, I
always explained, in detail, exactly how such pipelines operated. Many of the students in the Air Smuggling classes would come up to me with questions about identifying the owner or operator of certain foreign-registered aircraft. In response to these enquiries, I began my involvement in the world of aircraft spotting, an unusual and little-known avocation that began as a uniquely British activity.

If you remember your studies of the history of the Battle of Britain, you know that German bombers in 1939-1940 were a serious threat to the survival of the besieged United Kingdom. Civilians were encouraged to learn to identify Axis aircraft by the physical characteristics, and to report what they saw to the authorities. Playing-cards were distributed containing the silhouettes of both friendly and enemy aircraft types, to aid their spotters, many of whom would perch atop buildings and search for inbound German aircraft.

By the end of the war in 1945, such spotting had become second nature to many in the UK, and what began as a wartime necessity became a hobby that spread globally. Spotters, many of whom are in the aviation industry, and therefore often around airports, keenly compete amongst themselves as to who can be the one to see more of a certain type of aircraft, or more from a certain faraway nation. They are as rabid as the most vocal football fan, but their hobby demands a large amount of technical knowledge, as they must be intimately familiar with the key characteristics of an aircraft type by sight, even from a great distance. They also must know the national tail number system used to identify aircraft, and airlne logos and colour schemes, known as liveries.

Popularly believed by the public to be a group of strange individuals, who often brave inclement weather to see, and log in to their journal, aircraft en route to or from exotic places, spotters obtain information often available nowhere else.

I thus became one of these plane spotters, in order to collect information that would assist my students in identifying bulk-cash smugglers, as well as narcotics smugglers, for drug smuggling aircraft also move  dirty cash, and frankly, caught the fever. Going to one of many airfields in the Miami area, early in the morning, often encountering groups of mainly British aircraft spotters, all seeing who could first identify a distant aircraft by type, and operator name. The hobby became both a challenge and an enjoyable sport.

Since most spotters photograph the aircraft they see, to document their sighting, they are a valuable information resource. They also record minute details about the aircraft they see, all of which can be critical in a criminal investigation, because the aircraft in question may be engaged in bulk-cash smuggling, drug smuggling, arms smuggling or a host of other criminal activities, or it may have done so under a prior owner or operator. This information can be extremely valuable in a money laundering investigation.

My interest was, or course, the identification of owners and operators, as I knew from experience that
there were many routes for illicit traffic of contraband and illicit cash. It would prove to be source of a treasure trove of valuable information.

Next week: databases galore.