7NewsBelize.com reports on this case out of Belize:
The money laundering scandal at the Coye Moneygram Agency is big – apart from one point five million dollars in cash stuffed in suitcases, and seven people charged with money laundering, we’ve also got wholesale identity theft and fraudulent misuse of the entire driver’s license database. But tonight, it’s gone from big to huge as the former Moneygram master-agent in Belize Dean Fuller and his companies OMNI NETWORKS and FULTEC have been charged for money laundering.
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The Moneygram case erupted On December 31st of 2008, when police and the FIU [Financial Intelligence Unit] swept into the Coye residence and discovered over a million dollars in cash. Since then, subsequent revelations have shown that the Coye agency processed thousands of transactions presumably for online gambling using the names and personal particulars pilfered from the Traffic Department’s database.
The news site’s archive of articles provides additional background on the case, and although it seems unclear how the traffic database was compromised, the purpose behind it seems linked to internet sports gambling. The news site reported in June:
7News investigation shows that the Coye Moneygram Sub-Agency was linked to a company called Money Exchange International which provided a service called Instadollar to internet gamblers in Peru, Turkey, and the United States. That service was used primarily by those gambling on sporting events with what’s called a Sportsbook based in Costa Rica. A sports book allows betting on international, mostly us sporting events.
But online gambling isn’t legal in the United States so through the Instadollar service, these gamblers would be instructed to send the money to Belize using Moneygram. And this is the important part – to do so – they have to have a name to send it to – so that’s where the driver’s license database came in. Those names – from the Prime Minister to the Governor of the Central Bank were used by Instadollar and then sent to Belize.
That’s where a clerk working for the Coye’s Money Exchange International would then fill in the particulars such as the address and the license number and then sign a false signature. The volume of transactions was incredible; on some days, it would exceed $110,000.00 using dozens of names of unsuspecting Belize City residents daily.