Any passenger on any flight Inspectors at Newark say that any flight and any passenger could be hiding cash. Records show, however, that routes to Colombia and Mexico yield far more seizures than others. Nineteen 19 percent was bound for Mexico. The Dominican Republic, a transit and distribution point for drugs from Colombia, ranked a distant third among smuggling destinations, followed by Venezuela and Ecuador. No firm figures exist for the amount of money from drugs, organized crime, and financial fraud that is laundered through banks and businesses or smuggled out of the United States each year.
Authorities believe the flow has ballooned to tens of billions.
With the passage of money laundering laws aimed at keeping the cash out of banks and businesses, and a sweeping crackdown on electronic wire remitters in New York, smuggling remains a low-tech method of disposing of dirty cash. Once outside the United States, the money can be used to underwrite the cost of narcotics trafficking, from coca paste to cellular phones. It can be kept by drug barons as profit, poured into luxury houses and cars. And once you can get it into the banking system clean, you can do whatever you want with it. The difficulty in tracking money once it has left the country, experts say, makes stopping it at the border all the more important.