Trade Intermediary

Unscrupulous or collusive intermediaries facilitate cross-border transactions by:

• Arranging or verifying shipping, customs, and other trade documents that are forged or inflated.
• Coordinating multi-jurisdictional flows, making audits more difficult and layering the illicit funds more effectively.
• Exploiting complex documentation processes to conceal the absence of real goods or the overvaluation of shipments.

Corrupt or complicit intermediaries enable smuggling by:

• Managing logistics and cross-border shipping processes.
• Preparing or assisting with false or misleading documentation to mislabel the nature or value of commodities.
• Facilitating over- or under-invoicing to obscure true financial flows.

Trade intermediaries, knowingly or unknowingly, facilitate hot transfers by:

• Generating inflated or fictitious invoices to offset cross-border obligations, thereby circumventing formal bank transfers.
• Mixing illicit transactions with legitimate trade flows, disguising the true nature of funds and complicating end-to-end tracing.

• Arrange cross-border logistics and paperwork for moving cultural property, often presenting seemingly valid import/export documentation.
• File misleading descriptions or valuations that disguise the nature or origin of artifacts.
• Transfer artifacts repeatedly among different jurisdictions to layer illicit proceeds.
• Complicate financial institution due diligence by embedding illegal shipments within normal trade flows.

Trade intermediaries, including freight forwarders or customs brokers, handle logistics and critical documentation. They may be exploited to:

• File or transmit forged bills of lading, manifests, or certificates on behalf of criminal clients.
• Overlook or fail to verify mismatched data in repeated or circuitous shipping paperwork.

Their intermediary role can inadvertently shield the underlying fraud from financial institution scrutiny, as documentation often appears routine at face value.