DIRTY MONEY: Swiss Banks, Watergate, the Mafia, Money Laundering, and White Collar Crime

By now, crime is so much taken for granted as part and parcel of the American Way, that Clarke and Tigue don't bat a moral eyelash in their matter-of-fact simplified explanation of how to hide money obtained by illegal means from whatever Federal agency threatens to divest you of it. Offshore islands with small economic resources have been making a pitch for the dirty dollar, but Switzerland, which passed its bank secrecy law in 1934 to thwart Nazi agents on the trail of Jewish money, is still the hub of the action. On the smallest scale, the laundering of funds involves simple tax evasion, but carried to its greatest potential, it becomes a glamorous game of money-belted, high-flying couriers, discreet international bankers and crooked little weasels like Clifford Irving, Allen J. Lefferdink, Patsy Lepera and Carlo Gambino--along with various creative accountants for the multinationals, or Maurice Stans and the Committee for the Reelection of the President. The authors recount their maneuvers and the counter-movements by the IRS, U.S. Attorney and Treasury Department helped along by customs and narcotics agents--and they make it sound like stealing candy from a baby.