The Genesis Illusion

Chapter 47

"Okay, I've been working on a statistical method to clear away the confounding factors that are masking the source of bank transactions we're examining," Paul said. "One of the red flags we are looking for is similar amounts of deposits especially those that are in round numbers. The dates are a tip-off too if they are on the same or nearly the same dates. You told me that a lot of times many deposits are coming from the same bank or the same country. The bank name may be similar, perhaps spelled backwards."

"Yes, those are the more obvious signs," Agent Jongjaroen Wu of the anti money-laundering task force said. "That's a lot to sort through. Your statistical algorithm can deal with all of those possibilities?"

"I think so. But we need to test it out."

"We could get information from the bank here in Singapore and from two off-shore banks where monies were being deposited. Also, we learned more about the business bank account we thought was possibly fraudulent. That account contained deposits from both legitimate and questionable business sources. It's a business supply company. The mix makes sorting out the deposits even more difficult."

"Perfect, let's try my computer algorithm on a difficult case."

"All right, the business is in Australia. We have already contacted the bank and they are cooperating. Here is a printout of the transaction showing multiple deposits in the Singapore account. The Australian bank sent us a printout of the deposits to their account. Looks like thousands in only a few months. We also have this digitally in our computer database."

"What I want to do then is apply my statistical algorithm to the deposits made in the Australian account."

Wu manipulated the computer database to apply the statistical algorithm to the thousands of transactions. Almost instantaneously a short-list of questionable deposits that fit Paul's criteria appeared on the monitor screen. "These are the deposits that the method identified," Paul said. He stared at the list along with Wu who was looking at the screen from his seat in front of the computer terminal.

"This is incredible. Separating the thousands of possible transactions would've taken us months of tedious work," Wu said.

"We don't know yet if this is leading us anywhere productive. Let's see, the list has a lot of deposits... Here I see, from a bank in China. The bank names are different but the dates are the same and they are round dollar amounts. Could you contact one or more of these banks to see what transactions they have? Perhaps we can go one more step?"

"Yes, we can do that. I believe this one here I've seen before. We have a working arrangement with them. I believe they're in Guangzhou, China."

"You have my formula and you've seen how I use it. Let me know if you uncover anything useful."

Paul left Wu to apply the formula to the next round of deposit information from the Chinese bank. It was looking more like a money-laundering effort. But until they found the source they couldn't know for sure.